


The Glass Shatters

by Jacrispybensolo



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Prequel Trilogy, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Anakin Skywalker Needs a Hug, Anakin post ROTJ, Anakin would never leave Ben, Ben Solo Needs A Hug, F/M, Force Ghost Anakin Skywalker, Force Ghost(s), Gen, Lots of Mortis and Force ghosts, Minor Kylo Ren/Rey, Minor Padmé Amidala/Anakin Skywalker, Mortis (Star Wars), Post-Star Wars: Return of the Jedi, References to Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008), Reylo Ending, Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker Fix-It, TROS Fix IT
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-19
Updated: 2020-01-20
Packaged: 2021-02-27 04:55:58
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 8
Words: 26,178
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22311364
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jacrispybensolo/pseuds/Jacrispybensolo
Summary: TROS fix-it fit for Anakin. He is on Mortis learning how to be a Force Ghost, he brought balance to the Force, he is the Chosen One, and he would never forsake his family.
Relationships: Padmé Amidala/Anakin Skywalker, Rey/Ben Solo | Kylo Ren
Comments: 19
Kudos: 78
Collections: The_Newbie's Star Wars Fanfic





	1. ROTJ

**Author's Note:**

> This is not a Reylo fic, but I promise that Reylo will get fixed at the end.  
> My inspiration for this fic came from the Mortis arc in The Clone Wars, and from this poem at the end of Matthew Stovers Revenge of the Sith novelization:
> 
> The dark is generous and it is patient and it always wins. But in the heart of its strength lies its weakness:  
> One lone candle is enough to hold it back.  
> Love is more than a candle. Love can ignite the stars.

“Father,”

The voice sounded far away, but he could feel the warmth radiating from the boy who still sat right beside him. The boy? No, the man. His son.

When Anakin removed his helmet, he saw the smile from years earlier, the one he nearly forgot in the darkness of his mind. The smile of Padme Amidala, living on the face of Luke. Anakin’s hand twitched as he moved to touch his son’s face. He gave up halfway there and felt himself fading, trying to open the mouth that he hadn’t used in twenty years, but he didn’t have the strength to say all he needed to say.

Luke would know. If he looked to the Force.

“I won’t leave you.”

As Anakin Skywalker faded into the light, he held onto these words as they spun in his mind and coalesced into the images from his life. The ones Vader forgot. Ahsoka, calling to him using those same words. He went to tell Luke about her, when he opened his eyes and found nothing.

Luke was gone. The shuttle his son dragged him toward was gone. Even the remains of the exploding Death Star had vanished, leaving only him. Only Anakin Skywalker.

That’s when he looked down at his hands. His hands. The arms that lay beside a pool of lava. The arm that was sliced off by Count Dooku at the start of the Clone Wars. 

He bolted upright and took a gasp of air, air that filled his lungs and expanded into his chest and throughout his entire organic body, the cage of Darth Vader gone with its master.

“Where,” he whispered to find not the deep modulator of a machine, but the soft spoken voice of a boy from Tatooine. A voice he’d forgotten. A voice that had been squelched under the strength of the darkness and now spoke clearly for the first time since Mustafar. “Where am I?” He asked the nothing surrounding him, the air that floated in and around him, that belonged to the Force, each particle belonging to the Whills and somehow, he was the air and the Whills, and he was Anakin Skywalker.

He didn’t know where he was, or when he was. He remembered it all, from the mother on Tatooine, to the soft skin of his wife, to the battles of the Clone Wars, to his black-masked terror, to being saved by his son. He remembered a girl from a desert and a dark prince. He didn’t know if it all just happened, if it was all yet to happen, or if it was all happening at once.

He only knew it was the song of Anakin Skywalker.

Was this what it meant to become one with the Force?

“Anakin,” he felt the whisper beside and within him. A voice he hadn’t heard in a long time.

“Obi-Wan.”

And just like that, he was a Padawan again sitting beside the strength of Obi-Wan Kenobi, he was a young boy that just lost his first master, he was a war General that knew if Kenobi and Skywalker were together nothing would ever hurt them. Nothing could hurt them as long as they were Anakin and Obi-Wan.

“Let go, Anakin.”

_Let go._

Anakin Skywalker never learned to let go. Anakin Skywalker held onto those he loved with the intensity of the Tatooine suns. He held them so tightly that it choked them.

“Anakin,” 

The ethereal voice of Obi-Wan was fading, and Anakin finally let go. 

He let go on Shmi Skywalker, of Padme Amidala, of Ahsoka Tano, of Clone Captain Rex, of Qui Gon Jinn, of Luke Skywalker and Leia Organa, and he let go of the shadow that haunted him his entire life, the shadow of Sheev Palpatine. He let go of Obi-Wan Kenobi. He let go of the vanity and powerlessness that led to his fall.

And finally, he let go of Darth Vader, and he let go of Anakin Skywalker.

He was floating.

He was surrounded by nothing but light, but he somehow was the light, and he was also the darkness, and he was the hard ground, and - 

He was still alive.

Anakin opened his eyes and took in the vaulted hallway of the domed temple, a large cavernous space adorned with nothing and featuring only one long hallway, leading up to a throne that sat empty for so long it was collecting dust.

He’d been in this room before, but it was so long ago it might as well have happened to someone else. His entire life before Darth Vader - his mother, Padme, Ahsoka, training with Obi Wan, the Clone Wars, the Tusken Raiders he’d slaughtered (the first time) - all felt like a strange story he’d heard while on the operating table receiving his carefully crafted limbs and organs.

Could he actually be back in the temple at Mortis?

Of course the planet supposedly was the Force, but he always expected a bit more grandeur. Yoda and Obi-Wan talked of becoming one with the Force like it was some kind of ultimate goal to strive toward. Not like it was just a return to a place where he’d already been.

It was all rather anticlimactic, honestly.

“Am I... not dead?” Anakin spoke aloud and heard his voice, the voice of his true self bounce off the walls and fill his ears.

“Because I don’t feel dead,” he said to the empty room just to hear that voice again.

“Oh, you’re definitely dead.”

The soft chuckle of his old friend sounded, and Anakin scrambled to his feet to find Obi-Wan Kenobi. He knelt beside him and gazed upon the bearded face, made to look twenty years younger, though his blue eyes held the wisdom of a much older man.

“What is happening, Mas - “

He stopped himself. Obi-Wan was no longer his Master. He eradicated the Jedi - not to mention, they were both dead.

And there was someone else he called Master for so long, Anakin could no longer stomach the word leaving his lips.

“I could have sworn I was dead. If the lightning didn’t kill me, I’m quite sure the exploding Death Star would have done the trick.”

Obi-Wan gave him a reproachful look, but the shadow of a smirk played on his face.

“We are both very much dead, Anakin.”

“So why are we back here?”

Anakin took in the vaulted hallway lit up by runes he didn’t understand with a swirling of the Force that he could feel but couldn’t quite touch. Like it was trying to tell him something and he just didn’t have the ability to comprehend it’s message.

Even in death, the “will of the Force” eluded him. Somehow he thought that death would impart a wisdom that he couldn’t grasp in life - not as the Jedi Knight and War General Anakin Skywalker, and certainly not as the Sith Lord Darth Vader. Like suddenly he’d have the understanding of Obi-Wan, or even Yoda. 

He couldn’t even die right.

“You’re training is not over, Anakin. I spent twenty years training with my Master so I could learn to truly let go, and live on through the Force. Qui Gon - ”

“Qui Gon?” Anakin interrupted. “You learned from Qui Gon?”

“Qui Gon Jinn was first to ascend and live on through the Force. He showed Yoda, and he showed me. Now I can show you.”

Anakin felt through the Force for the signature of his very first Master, only to find no reposnse. “How did Qui Gon learn this power?”

“He was the first truly balanced Jedi. It’s a hard truth that the Jedi spent our lives attaining this vague sense of ‘balance’ and the only one who ever learned was mocked by our Order and died at the hands of a Sith Lord. We were so sure that we knew exactly what it meant to be balanced and how to attain it that we lost sight of the world around us. Darth Sidious caused the fall of the Jedi but he wouldn’t have been able to if we hadn’t spent years preaching platitudes instead of actually helping the members of our Order. We discouraged emotions when we should have embraced them.”

“What was different about Qui Gon?”

Obi-Wan took the question and pondered it while looking through the monastery. “I suppose it’s that he wasn’t afraid of the dark.”

“If Qui Gon is the first truly balanced Jedi... is he the Chosen One?” The Chosen One prophecy was something Anakin hadn’t even considered since long before his fall as Darth Vader. After the rise of the Empire, it wasn’t something that he took seriously. “Is there still a Chosen One?”

“The prophecy said the Chosen One would bring balance to the force. For twenty years I believed Luke to be the Chosen One - ”

“No.” Anakin shocked even himself with the severity of his tone. “I don’t want that put on him.”

“I don’t believe it anymore. Anakin, you are still the Chosen One. You were the Chosen One when we found you on Tatooine, you were the Chosen One during the Clone Wars, and you were the Chosen One as Darth Vader.”

He thought of his time as the black masked terror known as Darth Vader and couldn’t bring his mind to understand the possibility that the man in the cybernetic suit could have possibly been the Chosen One.

“How could I... I can’t be the Chosen One. Everything I’ve done... All the people I’ve hurt. I never cared about the Sith religion, but I was one of them.” Even with all Obi-Wan said about embracing emotions, Anakin attempted to hide his oncoming tears.

“It doesn’t matter Anakin. That’s not to say that you don’t have to atone for your sins, or the people don’t matter. What matters is that the Force chose you to bring balance, and you did when you killed your Master and let go of the dark side.”

“It was never about letting go of the dark side,” Anakin admitted. “It wasn’t even a change of heart. I just wanted to save my son.”

“That was your first step. Now you need to take your place.”

Obi-Wan gestured to the towering throne that stood over them, the mask of the Father still lingering in the room. A man who was so different from Anakin. How could he ever hope to take the place of The Father? 

“I can’t... I can’t be The Father,” he said. “The Father was wise and balanced. I’m... I’m not even those things in death.

“You know, this is outrageous!” Anakin stood up and threw his hands in the air, his previous tears forgotten, and let his genuine annoyance with the entire situation be known. “I died. I saved Luke knowing I was going to die and I wasn’t expecting to be forgiven! If I had to live on in some kind of Force torture for all of eternity, I would have accepted that as my punishment for Darth Vader. But no! Instead, I’m still around, practically alive but unable to actually see my son or apologize to my daughter, or even just STOP EXISTING! I have to live with the pain even in death?!”

Interrupting his outburst, Anakin heard something.

The faintest chuckle.

He whipped around to find Obi-Wan, dead ghost Obi-Wan, laughing at him.

“Is something funny?”

“Oh Anakin,” Obi-Wan stood up and laid a hand on his shoulder. Somehow he still had the warmth of a living person. “You haven’t changed.”

Anakin walked through the courtyard in a daze, completely unsure of what to do with himself.

He had died. Obi-Wan died. But now it was like they were both alive, just living on Mortis with no Father. No Son or Daughter. What that was it meant for the Force to truly be in balance? 

The Father once asked Anakin to take his place. He had refused, too wrapped up in the Clone Wars to leave, to in love with Padme to ever contemplate leaving her side. He would have made a terrible Father anyway - look at all the pain and destruction he was capable of. Even in death, he couldn’t stop his whirlwind emotions, the never-ending chasm of pain and guilt that plagued him through life. He’d never have the calm wisdom of the Father.

If he did, no one would accept wisdom from Darth Vader. 

The man who killed the Jedi.

What was he even doing here? If dead people can live on through the Force, he wanted to go see his son and daughter, not stay here, entirely unsure of how to live (or not live) his unalive life - 

A spectre in the Force.

Someone was walking toward him.

Instinctively he reached to grab his lightsaber, remembering the crimson blade that died with Darth Vader, and the shining blue blade that fell down the shaft of Bespin, Luke’s body falling down after it. He let the Force flow through him and guide his movements and it was so different from the past twenty years when he would have bent the situation to his will and seized the spectre by it’s throat.

Now he felt the spectre move closer and he felt her presence again.

A woman took shape before him, warm brown eyes that he watched die lighting up before him.

Mom.

I thought I let you go...

“Ani,” she grabbed his hand and it was as real as the air around him, the Force that flowed through him, as real as she was when he was a little boy. He dropped her hand and pulled her into his embrace.

All the tears of two decades flowed out of him, the cries that were squelched under Vader’s fury, the passion that was the promise and the lure of the dark side finally escaped from him and into his mother.

“Mom,” he cried, his voice barely tangible over his sobs. “You have no idea what I’ve done.”

“I do know.” She swept him in her arms like she did when he was just a child and ran her hands through his hair. “I do know and I forgive you.”

“It wasn’t just the sand people, mom.”

“I know.”

“Padme, Luke, Leia,” he spattered out the last word and his voice cracked on his daughters name.

“Your daughter never got the chance to accept her father. Give her time.”

His mother held him for what felt like forever, running her fingers through his hair and telling him it would be okay - and it might’ve been forever. There was always a piece of Anakin Skywalker on the courtyard in Mortis, letting himself cry to his mother.

Before he returned to Obi Wan, there was a faint whisper in his ear.

“Now be brave. And don’t look back.”

In his time as Darth Vader, Anakin rarely meditated in the Force.

The dark side does not require meditation because it is the act of bending the Force to your own will. There was no need for Vader to listen to the will of the Force, because Vader didn’t care about the will of the Force. Vader cared only about his own will.

Anakin spent half of his life in his cage, cut off from the light that desperately fought to shine through. He wasn’t sure that the light would welcome him back. Like it would somehow deny him, cut off his contact with life. He had one moment of light in the past twenty years, and it wasn’t a true moment of light. He wasn’t thinking of the Force being in balance, doing the ever elusive “right thing”, or even defeating Darth Sidious.

He only thought of the life of his son.

Was it not bending the Force to his will to kill Sidious? 

Isn’t everyone bending the Force to their will when they do anything?

Questions that eluded him during his time as a Jedi came back to him now, in death, when he was supposed to have achieved balance within himself.

Why did the Force let him live on after death when he wasn’t worthy?

He sat in the nexus of the castle at the foot of the throne, not allowing himself to sit in the place of The Father and reached out to touch the light with his mind and his heart.

It was like fresh air hitting his lungs, his lungs, the lungs of Anakin Skywalker and not Darth Vader. It was seeing the world in its full color again after two decades of burned eyes staring out of black orbs. It was feeling the light that lay inside of Vader, the smallest candle that was never snuffed out and bringing it to the forefront, the yellow of the fire mixing with the darkness that still remained inside him.

The darkness that would always be inside him.

And maybe that was okay.

Sidious was wrong. Anakin knew that the moment the black mask snapped onto his head and someone else's voice spoke from his lips. But the Jedi were wrong too.

What if the light needs the dark?

He went deeper into the light, letting go of all questions and allowing the Force to guide him to the knowledge he needed.

For the first time in twenty years, Anakin Skywalker was being guided by the will of the Force and the weight that came off his chest in that moment was even heavier than the suit of Vader.

“Anakin.”

The soft baritone of his first Jedi Master filled his heart and he felt the presence of Qui-Gon Jinn but couldn’t see his face.

“Master?” 

“Anakin,” he said again and even without seeing his face, Anakin knew Qui Gon was smiling. “I knew you’d come back.”

“Where are you, Master?”

“I was the first to ascend to the Force, but Obi Wan was the first to truly live on. He can appear in the world and interact with his surroundings. I’m just a voice. A presence.”

The lightness in his chest fell crashing to the earth. Even in death there was no escape from loss.

“I’m not as strong as you, Master. You were the first because you were truly balanced. When I died I thought I let go of all my attachments. But then I came back to Mortis and felt it all again. I thought death would make me wise. Like you, and Obi Wan.”

Wind swirled around him, and Anakin knew the shadow of Qui Gon was moving to his side.

“Death does not make one wise, Anakin. It does not hide your flaws or excuse your sins. It only amplifies them. You still need to put in the work.”

“And here I thought dying was the end.”

“Not for the Chosen One,” Qui Gon’s voice faded with his presence, and Anakin was left alone again.

This place..

Anakin walked the mountains of Mortis, taking in the sunlight streaming down on him and warming his skin like a blanket wrapped around him. He hadn’t slept with a blanket in twenty years. He hadn’t felt the sun in the same amount of time. 

When he left Mortis with Ahsoka and Obi-Wan, the entire planet (if it could be called that) disappeared in a flash of light after he defeated the Son. It shouldn’t exist. Anakin himself shouldn’t exist. 

He had convinced himself long ago, even before he became Vader, that Mortis didn’t exist. That he, his Padawan, and his Master all experienced the same vivid Force vision at the same time, on their way to meet Captain Rex. That there was no Daughter who imbued Ahsoka with her life force, there was no Son who was able to overpower the light so handily, and there was no Father, asking Anakin to take his place.

Even now, he didn’t feel he could just stay on Mortis. He had no clue if any of this was real, and if it was, how could he just walk around here? His son needed him. Luke was out in the world, being the last Jedi, probably searching for guidance. Anakin couldn’t just stay on Mortis, being warm, while Luke and Leia were out in the galaxy needing guidance in their Force training.

He looked out from his vantage point on the green mountain to toward the Father’s monastery. Erected in the mountains of Mortis, it stood still as stone with the glowing crystal sitting atop the pinnacle of the pyramid. Exactly as he left it. 

The Force flowed more easily through him in Mortis, as it did when he came here during the Clone Wars. But that tower was so teeming with life, so teeming with Force power, that Anakin was sure it was the Force itself, taking a corporeal form. 

And it called to him.

As the Force always called to him.

Anakin moved to the monastery, and in one step the light dimmed and he was inside its walls.

And in that moment, Anakin was barely even aware of his own body or his own consciousness. He was the runes inscribed on the walkway of the monastery. He was the throne of the Father, and the cavernous space below him, and all of those things were him and together they all made the Force.

He didn’t need to ask. In his head, he heard the name of his son Luke, almost as if someone else said it and he reached out to grab it.

Night fell and he was off Mortis.

The jungle surrounding him teemed with life - life he had felt before, as Darth Vader. Now all the life had a different meaning. Instead of beings that were in the way of his missions, beings that meant nothing next to his power with the dark side, they were a part of him, all different facets in the tapestry that is life and the Force.

A bonfire roared and on its embers, the mask and suit of Darth Vader lay atop the funeral pyre in a baptism of fire, the fire that gave way to Anakin Skywalker.

He looked down and saw the ivory tunic of the Jedi, the color he never wore but now preferred to the dark browns and blacks of his chosen attire. 

When he looked up, he saw the smile of his son shining back at him.

The one who never stopped believing in him.

Luke turned away to the comfort of his friends, and Anakin faded into the mist.


	2. Between ROTJ and TFA - Part 1

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Anakin learns the consequences of interfering in the mortal world. Luke learns an important lesson.

“Luke?!”

Anakin sat up and found himself in the courtyard of Mortis. He looked at the dark cement beneath him and reached out to feel the signature of his son and it was gone.

“Where did he go?!” He yelled to the nothing of Mortis. “I was just with him!”

“The galaxy is not yet done with Luke Sykwalker,” the voice of Obi-Wan appeared next to him. He looked to his side and found his friend Obi-Wan. Not old Ben and no blue glow.

“We were just with him,” Anakin panted out, trying to maintain any semblance of composure. “Where did he go?”

“He didn’t go anywhere. We left. He has his own life to live, his own destiny. We can’t just stay there and eat dinner with him every night.”

Anakin looked out to the rolling hills and white trees of Mortis and asked the only question he could think of.

“And why not? I appeared in the Fathers monastery just by thinking about it. I thought of Luke and then we appeared to him on Endor. What is stopping us from living with him in his world?!”

He knew his voice reeked of desperation unbefitting of a man who transcended death and became one with the Force, but he never was one to control his emotions. Why shouldn’t he spend his life with his children?

Obi-Wan put his head into his hands and slowly shook. A typical Obi-Wan gesture.

“You need to stop thinking of yourself as a mortal.” His head was still in his hands. “You have no business in the mortal world unless you are called there. Can’t you feel your purpose here?”

Now he lifted his head and Anakin did feel badly for a moment when he saw the honest frustration shining out of Obi-Wan’s blue eyes. Anakin wasn’t even a good student after they were both dead.

“How can I think about my purpose on _Mortis_ when my son and daughter are out there in the galaxy and need me?”

Obi-Wan actually started _massaging his temples._

“There’s no way you have a headache right now. You’re dead.”

He looked up and caught Anakin’s eye and held it until they both laughed.

“Only you could give a ghost a headache, Anakin.”

They laughed again until the tension in the air dropped and Anakin felt okay in the Force again, Okay with Obi-Wan.

“Luke and Leia are strong. They’ve made it this long without - ”

Obi-Wan had the good grace to blush and look to the ground before he finished the sentence.

“It’s okay. Not being there for my children can be added to my list of mistakes.”

“Extensive list.”

“Why am I in this outfit?” Anakin gestured to the ivory colored shirt and pants. “I’ve never worn this before.”

“It’s typical Jedi garb. We appeared at that place at that moment because it’s where Luke needed us. It’s why I appear to him as Old Ben Kenobi, and you’re wearing an outfit that’s not yours. It’s what he imagined his war hero father wore.”

“Could Leia see me?”

“I’m sorry, Anakin. She wasn’t ready. I don’t know if she ever will be.”

Anakin walked the perimeter of the courtyard, thinking not only of Leia but of Ahsoka Tano and when they were on Mortis together. “I suppose it’s the least of what I deserve.”

Without having to walk, Obi-Wan materialized beside him again.

“Redemption is not about ‘deserve’. Darth Vader didn’t deserve redemption. It’s something only you can decide for yourself, and it’s not something me, Luke, or Leia can bestow upon you. It doesn’t matter what you’ve done or how many chances you had to turn that you didn’t take. There is no time limit. No one that you’ve hurt has to forgive you, and many probably won’t. You went on a very personal journey and in the end, your light defeated your dark. That is why you ascened - because that’s all that matters.”

Moisture dotted Anakin’s cheeks, and in that moment, he knew the dead could cry.

Before he could move to regain his composure in front of his former master, there was the slightest shift in his chest as his heart quickened and his adrenaline kicked it, like it would when approached by a battalion of super battle droids. And there it was. The presence of his son, there in the back of his heart behind all the anxiety and alarming bells of danger.

“Did you feel that?!” He jumped to his feet in one fluid motion, barely giving Obi-Wan a glance back. “Tell me you felt that.”

“We can’t get involved, Anakin!”

But he was already running to find Luke.

Anakin sat in the center of the courtyard, surrounded by the standing stones in the center of the circle and the runes light up yellow when he meditated in the Force. He stood with arms upturned, just as he had to tame the Son and the Daughter all the years ago. In that moment, he could feel everything in the galaxy and he fought his baser instincts to force it to his will, and searched for the imprint of one person.

He sent out the word.

_Luke._

It was so loud in the Force he was sure every part of the galaxy heard him, alive or dead.

And in response, there was the smallest of taps in his mind. An answer.

He opened the floodgates of his heart and allowed his son to reach him.

_Father? Is that you?_

The voice was so faint it was like a pebble dropping in the ocean under the power of an avalanche.

Anakin reached out to the pebble and grabbed it with all his might in the Force, and looked on the face of his son.

Luke’s green eyes shone out at him with the same relentless optimism that both infuriated and intrigued Vader. Anakin was just happy to be looking at his son without the dark lenses of Vader’s black orbs, or through the smoke at a bonfire with _Yoda_ hanging out next to him.

“Luke,” he couldn’t help but smile ear to ear as he greeted his son. “What happened? Are you hurt?”

His surroundings on Mortis faded and he was brought into Luke’s environment; a dark jungle under a heavy thicket of leaves and branches, with Luke standing not far from him, completely out in the open with his lightsaber at the ready. Anakin reached out his hands to move closer to Luke, when they brushed against the leaves. He could feel the veins against his skin.

He could interact with the real world outside of Mortis.

What exactly was stopping him from staying?

“I’m not hurt, Father. There was just a giant bat and I panicked!” Luke gestured so wildly with his lightsaber pointing to the sky and his voice cracked on “bat”, and Anakin couldn’t help but laugh.

Then Luke lowered his saber and laughed too, and suddenly Anakin was laughing with his son.

“It really was a big bat,” he continued defending. “It flew right overhead and then swooped down like it was trying to grab me. I panicked and I thought of you, and Master Obi-Wan, and Master Yoda.”

He turned the saber off now, all panic completely gone from his demeanor and smiled at his father next to him.

“I’m sorry I worried you, father. I know you’re probably busy doing whatever it is you’ve been doing,” Luke trailed off, as if there was more he wanted to say but thought better of it. Anakin simply raised his eyebrows, wanting him to continue.

“I just have been trying to contact you for months now. And you finally showed up after I nearly got killed by a giant bat.”

If Anakin had blood, he’d have felt it stop running, and his ears roared as he registered what Luke was saying.

His son has been trying to reach him. _For months._

And he felt nothing. He didn’t even feel that months had gone by.

“I didn’t...” He trailed off, not sure how to justify himself. “I didn’t feel it.”

There it was. His pathetic excuse for not being there for his son. He didn’t _feel_ it. He was actually _born from midichlorians_ but he couldn’t feel his son calling for him.

“I want to rebuild the Jedi Order,” Luke blurted out a bit too quickly to be natural.

“And that’s... That’s why you called me?” Maybe dead people were supposed to be above the petty squabbling of mortals, but Anakin couldn’t help but feel a sense of accomplishment that Luke came to him instead of Obi-Wan or Yoda, despite his massive failure as a Jedi. 

Failure was too soft of a word for how his life as a Jedi ended.

“I was hoping you could help. The Jedi library was turned into the Emperors office. Nothing in there can be trusted anymore. I thought you’d be the best person to turn to...”

Luke trailed off but Anakin knew what he meant. Not because of his time as a Jedi, but because of his time as Darth Vader. He would know what Sidious tampered with.

“Palpatine only told me what benefitted him to tell me. He very well could have lied to me too.”

Luke’s face fell, and Anakin felt instant guilt over making him sad. This wasn’t about him. This was about Luke and his legacy, as the man who would rebuild the Jedi Order.

“But I can still help,” Luke lifted his head to look at him and his eyes lit up the entire forest. “We can go to the first Jedi Temple. We can find the original Jedi texts, and the Sith holocrons. I can even bring you to Mortis.”

_If I can figure out how to travel there in a ship._

“You wanna study the Sith holocrons?”

There it was. Trepidation.

Anakin moved to sit on a log to his side and gestured for Luke to sit beside him. The warmth of his son radiated next to him, and Anakin continued.

“When I was in the Jedi Order, they were so bogged down in dogma and regulations placed on its members, that they forgot the reason for their existence. Balance. The Jedi were there to maintain balance. Walk with the light and understand the dark. 

“The Jedi were too afraid of the dark to fully understand it. And they were so afraid of their fear that they never confronted it.”

“So I can’t be afraid?” Luke whispered the question, and in that moment, Anakin could see the little boy whose childhood he missed. His heart swelled with pride at the man he’d grown into.

“When I became Darth Vader, I thought I was crushing my fear. I thought I’d finally defeating everything that haunted me because I was _Darth Vader_ and nothing would dare hurt Darth Vader.

“I was wrong. Instead I let fear rule me, and it lost me everything. Fear, anger, hate, suffering. That cycle was all Vader did, every day. If I had dealt with my fear, maybe things would be different today.

“Maybe me and your mother would have raised you and Leia.”

A warm silence hung in the air between them as they sat in the forest, listening to the sounds of life surrounding them. Anakin kept himself attuned to the Force, relishing the feeling of life flowing through him, and sending beats of himself back in return.

“Can you tell me about my mother?”

Anakin finally let himself think of her. Her soft brown eyes that looked at him like he was the only person in the galaxy. The curls that he ran his fingers through and savored their touch. The woman as a whole, who always carried herself with grace and dignity. The woman who didn’t stop believing in him, even after Sidious had already turned him.

And as they sat under the stars that night, Anakin told Luke about his mother and her lakehouse on Naboo, how they’d rolled in the fields of grass caring only about each other as the world started to fall apart around them. How in that moment, he wasn’t even Anakin Skywalker, the Chosen One, Padawan to Obi-Wan Kenobi with a destiny bigger than himself. He was just one of a pair. And he was finally humbled. 

They didn’t even notice the bat fly over their heads, holding a dagger in its wings.

When Anakin returned to Mortis, he materialized in the Father’s monastery, where he could immediately begin his meditations and find the first Jedi Temple. He knew it was probably taught to him as a boy, but his education was kind of rushed due to joining so much later than everyone else and then being thrown into the Clone Wars right as he reached Knighthood.

And he never paid attention to Jedi History class and he almost never spent time in the library with Jocasta Nu.

But he was sure if he just meditated hard enough, he could pinpoint the location of the Temple and the texts. 

“Oh, Anakin.”

Just as he was settling down to search for the Temple, who _would_ appear but Obi-Wan?

“I’m a little busy right now.”

“What in the blazes could you possibly be doing?” He asked the question lightly, like a joke. But Obi-Wan always expected an answer.

“I’m trying to _meditate._ This usually requires silence and serenity.”

He had hoped that Obi-Wan would take his not-so-subtle suggestion to heart and act upon the opportunity to _leave him alone,_ but apparently Obi-Wan had other plans.

“Uh huh,” Obi-Wan gave him the suspicious stare that he remembered so well. “And how was your trip to Yavin 4?”

_Yavin 4?_ Anakin hadn’t been to Yavin 4 since...

Oh.

“I didn’t know that was Yavin IV. I’d never actually been to Yavin IV’s surface, only it’s atmosphere.”

“But you responded to Luke’s call.”

“Well, of course I did,” Anakin finally stood up and stalked toward Obi-Wan. “Wait a second, YOU heard his call for help? And you just sat here doing what, exactly?”

Anakin hated the accusation in his tone. He was meant to be _better_ than this now. He can’t just give into his anger and irritation at every turn. Especially not with Obi-Wan, who spent the better half of his life watching over Luke, slumming it out on the deserts of a barren wasteland like Tatooine.

“I knew that Luke was in no real danger,” he said, as if it were that simple.

“How could you possibly know that?!”

“Because I was calm when his call came to me. And even if he was in danger, we can’t just go charging in every time Luke has a problem. He will never be the Jedi he needs to be if we just save him from every struggle. Although your life force has lived on, you are not alive anymore. You can’t interfere in the mortal realm, _it has consequences_.”

Anakin knew better than to argue with Obi-Wan. Obi-Wan learned how to use his life force to live on for twenty years during his exile. Anakin only got one message to him as he died.

But when he looked at the cavernous walls of the Father’s monastery, he just felt empty.

“So what am I supposed to do?”

Obi-Wan simply gestured to the room around them before fading away.

What did The Father even _do_ all day?

Despite what Obi-Wan said when he arrived on Mortis, and what The Father had said all those years ago, Anakin found it hard to believe he was still the Chosen One. Even if the Force “chose” his mother to be impregnated with him, it probably un-chose him the second he donned the black cloak of Darth Vader.

Mortis would never accept him as it’s Father.

He didn’t even know if he wanted to be the Father of Mortis.

He only wanted to be the father of Luke and Leia.

All his time since leaving Luke on Yavin IV had been spent meditating in search of the first Jedi Temple. He could feel it in the grasp of his fingertips, so close he could almost smell the salt of an ocean, and breeze running through his hair. He was almost there, but it was like something was blocking him. Like a sheen of glass lay between him and the location, and he wasn’t strong enough to break through.

Yoda would probably know where the first Temple was located. He was probably _there_ when it was built, already leaning on a gimer stick and reciting platitudes every other sentence. But he didn’t want to have to ask _Yoda_. Luke called _him_ for help, his father. Not Yoda. They would find it together.

Maybe Leia would want to come too.

Time was a weird thing in Mortis; when months passed in the galaxy, it would feel like no time at all to Anakin. The first time he was in Mortis, it felt like days to him, Obi-Wan, and Ahsoka, but no time at all had passed for Captain Rex. He had no idea how long he sat there trying to reach the island, but he put all his very existence into trying to shatter the glass.

When he could almost feel the first crack beneath his mind, that’s when it called to him.

Right outside the glass. A cave. A cave that would give him passage to the island without shattering the glass.

His mind went right to the cave without looking back.

Anakin looked down at his body and once again found the iridescent blue glow that surrounded him when he went back into the galaxy. He looked around for his son, and couldn’t find the warmth of his sons Force presence. Instead, all he felt was the cold.

A pool of still water lay beside him and the light reflected off of it from above, blinding him so he could only see into the darkness of the cave.

It called to him like an old friend wrapping a blanket around him in the cold. It told him that it had what he was looking for, if he would only reach out and grab it.

Anakin reached out with his entire heart. He _knew_ this place would provide him the answers which he seeked. The first Jedi Temple must be at this location.

But where was the island?

Where was the glass?

There was only one path which led him away from the blinding light and deeper into the cave that called to him, the cave that wanted to show him the way to the ancient texts and temple.

He followed the curving wall until he was sure he would reach a center and the cave was so black he couldn’t have seen in front of him if it wasn’t for the glow of spirits in the Force. He let the blue glow guide his way further into the cave and the curving wall just kept taking him in deeper and deeper and the voice calling to him only grew in strength, until he saw it. 

A door only steps away that called for him so loudly, Anakin ran to it and ripped it open.

Only to find another curving wall that pulled him in closer, and now the voices were so loud they were screaming at him through the Force pulling him in deeper and deeper.

_Ani._

_Anakin._

_Young Skywalker._

_Brother._

_Master Skywalker?_

_Master._

_Father._

_General Skywalker._

All these voices came to him at once, screaming to him and pulling him further in, each one growing louder and stopping only for one.

_Lord Vader._

“Darth Vader is gone,” Anakin yelled out with a feigned confidence as he desperately wished for the return of his blue lightsaber, the one he last touched when burning in a pool of lava.

And in front of him, the visage of a black hood with a scarred man laughing underneath. The black curling in his heart at the presence of Lord Sidious erupted and Anakin ran for him to seize him by his throat, when the shadow vanished, replaced only by the falling of a dagger.

He reached down with the speed of a Jedi General of the Clone Wars, but the dagger was swooped up in time by a black bat streaked with red. Anakin made for the bat, which flew above his head and vanished out of the cave.

“Grandfather,” the deep mechanical baritone similar to Vader’s dragged him away from the bat as he went deeper down the hall, trying with all his might to turn around but the ever growing darkness just kept pulling him deeper.

“Show me again, the way of the dark.”

_Who are you?_ Anakin made to scream but the words caught in his throat.

“And I will finish what you started.”  
The voice vaded and in its place rose the harsh breaths of Vader’s ravaged lungs. The _sssshk_ of a lightsaber followed by a crimson blade lighting the path, and the silhouette of a machine blocking him in.

“You’re just a vision,” Anakin told him, and could only hope it was true. 

Vader didn’t even respond. In his cold rage, he only charged onward, as Anakin was left with no lightsaber.

“You are weak.”

“No,” Anakin whispered, evading Vader’s militant persistence using only the Force. “No, I defeated you. You’re just a vision.”

He knew it would stoke Vader’s anger to an uncontrollable amount. He lifted his saber and Anakin pulled it from his hand. He swiped at the black body and it vanished like the shadow before it.

“I’m Anakin Skywalker. And you are nothing at all.”

He leaned against the curving wall, waiting for his next menace to appear from around the corner, when the wall opened up and he was thrust into a chasm that opened up from the ground, where the bat flew back and landed in front of him, taking the shape of a woman.

She wore the black red-trimmed coat of the son and her eyes glowed at bright as Vader’s saber. The coat ran to the floor turning into a long gown that shimmered as she moved. Her hair flowed down her back and moved in time with the dress.

The girl moved into the light, and Anakin saw her face.

“Leia?”

A snarky smile lined her lips, and she simply said, “Father.”

_Father._

“I don’t know what’s happening.”

Before anyone could stop and explain, another bird swooped, the same width as a bat but with the wings of an angel. When it landed, the face of Luke peered out with an almost ethereal glow, his beige and white colored cloak lit up the same color green as his lightsaber.

“Hello Father,” His voice was lighter and lilting.

Nothing at all like the Luke he knew. 

“Luke, I don’t know what’s going on - ”

“We await your orders, Father,” Leia snarled out with the same smirk. “What will we do with the prisoners?”

“Prisoners?” Anakin nearly choked out, completely unsure what to do. “What prisoners? Leia, what are you talking about?”

“Leia? Why do you keep calling me Leia?” 

She raised an eyebrow at him without letting the half smile go, while she sauntered away from him. She raised herself up again and took the form of the black bat, this time with a prisoner being held at her feet.

Luke took up his green eagle form and his own prisoner appeared at his feet. Suddenly, Anakin was back on Mortis again, the Son and the Daughter on either side holding Obi-Wan and Ahsoka in their clutches, while he was ordered by the Father to only save one.

Leia’s prisoner was a girl wearing desert rags similar to the ones he wore while on Tatooine. Her hair was pulled back in buns, and she fought desperately against the bats feet, practically snarling with rage.

Luke’s was a man taller than even Anakin himself, draped in black, and using bare strength to fight off the claws of the eagle. He kept his eyes on the desert girl the entire time.

Trying to calm his fear, Anakin reached through the Force to grab at Luke and Leia, not wanting to hurt either of them but not wanting to hurt their prisoners either. He gently touched them with the Force and they both pushed him out with little effort.

“Father, tell us which to kill,” Luke called out with the booming voice of the eagle.

_Luke is willing to kill?_

He turned to look at Leia as the bat, and with a heavy heart, his raised his arms to lift his children and bring them to their knees.

They sprang out of his grasp, dropping their prisoners and heading directly for each other. The eagle attempted to swoop down and grab the desert girl, and the bat blocked his way with her wing, sending him flying in the other direction as his back cracked against the stone wall. When he fit the floor, he was back to being a human, his body crumpled in a heap.

“Master!” the desert girl screamed and ran for Luke. The man in black ran after her, and Anakin stood dumbfounded, unsure of what to do next. He didn’t even know if what he saw was real.

Leia took the form of her human self and walked toward the fallen Luke with precise movement. Like she was absolutely sure of her next movements.

Anakin moved in front of his daughter to block her path, assuming she was making for the prisoners.

“I have to go to him, Father.”

Leia deliberately moved the girl from Luke’s side, not without gentleness. She closed her eyes and held her hands above Luke, deep within the Force.

Luke stirred on the ground, and Leia down at her brother, before looking up at her Father.

“What’s happening?” Anakin whispered, completely in over his head. “What did you do?”

“I saved him, Father.” She actually smiled at him, and Anakin’s heart nearly soared.

“But,” he sputtered out, not wanting to say the obvious. _You’re the embodiment of the dark side. Why are you helping him?_ He was hardly one to judge.

“There’s only one thing the darkness loves, Father.” Leia looked to the sky and closed her eyes, accepting her fate. “The light”.

Leia was enveloped in a spray of light so blinding, Anakin covered his eyes.

When he opened them, all had vanished like they ever even existed. He stood in front of the wall of glass, and when he reached out to touch it the fog began to clear.

He made to shatter the glass and when he touched it with the Force it gave him the most violent shove of his life. He opened his eyes to find himself back in the Father’s monastery, alone again. All his visions gone like ashes in the wind.

“Anakin,” Obi-Wan’s voice floated above him, his cadence like warm honey over his wounded soul, and Anakin reached out for him.

Obi-Wan pulled Anakin to his feet, as he always did.

“What happened?”

“I found you on the floor in front of the Father’s throne,” Obi-Wan took a step back from him, concern etching deep grooves in his skin. “What were you doing? Did you have a vision?”

“I don’t know if I’d call it that,” Anakin said.

And he told Obi-Wan the entire story, no detail missing, in a way he never would have when they were both alive together. He told him of his interference in the mortal world, of his trip to the island planet with the cave, all his visions. The glass that wouldn’t shatter.

Obi-Wan listened to his entire story, and unlike the Obi-Wan he remembered from his training as a Padawan and their wartime missions, he gave no sign of judgment. Though he looked like the man he knew, this was an Obi-Wan deeply humbled by his exile on Tatooine, and wisened from many years with nothing much to do, left only with his thoughts and meditations.

A man who forgave him. Not just for Darth Vader, but for his missteps now. For blatantly ignoring his instructions to not interfere with the mortal world. To leave his son to make his own decisions.

Luke and Leia as reincarnations of the Son and Daughter was the only vision that he hadn’t seen before. Was it a warning? What was to come if he continued on his current path?

After Anakin finished recounting his visions, Obi-Wan stared thoughtfully, like he was carefully contemplating his next words.

“I won’t pretend to know what your vision means. But that island - specifically, the cave - it was trying to tell you something. You went looking for the original Jedi Temple and texts, and the dark side answered your call. You know better than anyone that the dark side cannot be trusted.”

Realization dawned on Anakin and his heart burned with the thought.

“And I went straight for the dark.”

Obi-Wan moved closer to him.

“Your light defeated your dark, and for that I am very proud of you. But defeating the darkness within us is a lifelong journey, not a singular battle that can be won with one epiphany. The Force allowed you to live for a reason, and it’s not that you’re the Chosen One, or your midichlorian count. It’s so you can show others the way out. The flicker of a candle in a world of darkness. That is your destiny.”

“But how can I do that without interfering?”

Obi-Wan simply gestured to the throne sitting behind them. For the first time, Anakin did not turn away.

When Anakin made his final visit to Luke, he immediately knew that some years had passed since their meeting in the forests of Yavin IV. When he found his son, he was practicing ihs lightsaber form and handily defeated the training program. Anakin watched the man his son was becoming - he stood with the confidence afforded to the last Jedi. But underneath it all, when Anakin reached through the Force, he felt the true signature of his son. A warm light, permeating through him and surrounding all he touched. The core of Luke Skywalker.

“Luke,” he whispered just loud enough to be heard, but not so much to startle him out of his deep Force meditation.

It didn’t work. Luke jerked out of his trance with his lightsaber at the ready and the helmet still covering his eyes.

“Father?!” He sounded both excited and shocked to hear him, and he ripped off the helmet to reveal the hair that he had grown out since Anakin last saw him. Luke ran to him and reached out to embrace him, and though Anakin could feel his touch, he could tell by the look on his son’s face that he could not feel the touch in turn from his father.

“It’s been so long. I worried you weren’t coming back.”

The relief on Luke’s face was nearly enough to make Anakin change his mind about all of it - consequences be damned, he was going to stay with his son.

But the shadow of Leia turning into a dark side entity was enough to put him in order. He couldn’t be selfish. Staying with Luke would be selfish. He owed too much to his daughter to ever make up for it, but it was a start.

Not wanting to say goodbye yet, Anakin took a seat on the bench near Luke’s training area. They were on a freighter ship of some type, and Anakin hoped they were alone.

“How is your sister?” Anakin asked as Luke sat beside him.

“Leia’s really good. Busy. She married Han.”

Han Solo. Anakin remembered him well, but he didn’t feel it was appropriate to talk with Luke about that particular memory.

“That’s great. I’m happy for her.”

“And she has a son,” Luke got it out quickly, without taking a breath. Like he was nervous for Anakin to know.

“Thats - that’s amazing.” Anakin meant it. He gave the kind of smile he’d only ever given to Padme as he thought of the baby being raised by a woman like Leia Organa. “What’s he like? What’s his name? Does he - ” 

He stopped. Somehow it felt inappropriate to ask if the child had the Force. Like it was too personal. Something between Han, Leia, and their child.

“He has the Force,” Luke knew what he meant. “I teach him what I can, but I’m not around much. Lando and I have been searching for Jedi artifacts.” Lando Calrissian. Another memory that Anakin was sure Luke wouldn’t want brought up at this particular moment. “The baby’s name is Ben - after Ben Kenobi. I thought it was sweet. Leia’s ‘only hope’ and all. Baby Ben is... well, he’s really sweet. Cries a lot. I think...”

Luke stopped and contemplated, like it was choosing his words carefully.

“I think he already struggles with the dark side. I can feel it in him, in quiet moments. Is that wrong?”

He looked so hopefully at his father, like he truly believed Anakin had all the answers.

“Everyone struggles with darkness,” Besides _maybe_ Obi-Wan. “Ben is a baby. Everything is new to him - what you perceive as darkness is just his fear of the world he’s still discovering. Failure to confront fear is what leads to a fall like mine.”

“Ben’s already a brave boy. Lando calls him ‘little starfighter’”. Luke laughed. 

“Of course he is. He has Leia for a mother. And you never knew Padme,” Anakin stopped to clear his throat and regain his composure before continuing. “Your mother. She was the bravest person I ever knew.” His voice choked when he talked about Padme. “And I spent years with soldiers fighting in the Clone Wars. Padme wasn’t afraid of anyone. If Ben has any of Padme in him, he will be okay.

“Can you tell Leia? About her mother?”

“I don’t know if she’s ready to hear it.” Luke answered honestly. “I believe her adopted father told her a little about her mother. But I’ve been telling her about you. She’s not ready yet, but I know she will be. She’ll come around. One day.”

Anakin nodded his head. “I understand.”

Bail Organa was a good man. If anyone could honor Padme’s life, it was him.

They sat together in companionable silence, for how long, Anakin couldn’t have said. He stayed for as long as he could, his last moments with his son.

“You aren’t coming back, are you?”

Luke whispered, looking at the floor with tears welled up in his eyes. Anakin couldn’t keep anything from his son. They were one in the Force; what one felt, the other felt with him. It’s how Luke knew about his lone flicker of light. The only one who still believed, including Anakin himself.

Anakin could never conceal the truth from Luke. Not even if he wanted to. He just wanted to pretend, for a few moments longer.

He reached his hand out to his son, and Luke took him in his embrace, and it was like all the years melted away. For one shining moment, they were a boy and his dad. They had never been separated, and Anakin raised him. He had a twin sister, and a mother. And the four of them lived on a lake house in Naboo. Reality melted away, and for that shining moment, this was their world. Anakin took hold of that moment and held it in his heart for all of eternity.

“I’m so lost, dad,” Anakin’s heart soared at being called “dad”. He kept his arm around his son, waiting for more. 

“I need to restart the Jedi Order. I promised Master Yoda that I’d pass on what I’ve learned. But I can’t find any of the artifacts of Jedi or Sith, every clue leads to a dead end. I haven’t seen Yoda or Obi-Wan since Endor, and now I won’t have you anymore. How can I restart the Jedi when I have nothing?”

“Will you meditate with me?”

Anakin let go of his son and moved to the floor, where he sat cross-legged and gestured for Luke to sit across from him.

“I can’t...” Luke trailed off. Of course. He didn’t grow up in a Temple, like Anakin did. He’d never meditated in front of someone before. 

“Humor me.”

Luke smiled at his dad, and sat cross-legged in front of him. He closed his eyes and lifted his hands, and Anakin followed suit.

Since becoming a spirit, Anakin never really left the Force, he just put it away from the forefront of his mind. He brought it back up and felt every object on the ship, and mostly his son, their minds so closely linked that he actually might have been Luke Skywalker in that moment.

It didn’t feel much different from being Anakin Skywalker.

“What do you feel?” He whispered to his son.

Luke hesitated before answering, and Anakin could feel his exertion of more effort into the Force.

“The ship, it’s hull. The bench. You.”

“And farther out?”

“The hatchway. The closet and the capes inside the closet. The cockpit. The pilot’s chair. Lando. He’s sleeping.”

“Farther out.”

“Passing debris. A dead star. Thousands of live stars. The black nothing of space.”

“Farther.”

“Leia. Ben. The island and the cave. Death. Life.”

Anakin tapped on Luke’s Force signature and felt his grandson and daughter through the Force.

“And what’s between it all?”

A moment passed, and Luke sounded more sure of himself than ever before.

“A Force.”

“And inside you?”

“That same force.”

“And that, Luke Skywalker, is all you will ever need. You will never have nothing and you will never be alone. Because you have the light, and that light does not belong to the Jedi. There is nothing in those books that you do not already have. The Force will _always_ be with you.”

Luke opened his eyes and looked at his father one last time.

“Dad.” A tear slid down his cheek, and if Anakin didn’t know better, he’d say one slid down his too.

“ _I_ will always be with you.

“Now be brave. And don’t look back.”

And with that, Anakin Skywalker faded away from his son, and took his destined seat on Mortis.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Luke's lesson to Rey in TLJ is one of my favorite sequel moments and I loved the idea that he learned it from his father first :)


	3. Between ROTJ and TFA - Part 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ben cries out in the Force. Anakin sees an old friend.  
> Events of the burning of Luke's Jedi Temple.

#### 13 Years before TFA

Despite years of apparent peace in the galaxy, Anakin never felt a true serenity in the Force. Like there was still a distortion, but it was way in the back of his head, an occasional itch that he couldn’t quite scratch and forgotten after a few moments.

He wrote it off at first, thought it was the inevitable bit of Vader still lingering in his shadow.

Until he found Obi-Wan waiting for him in the monastery, a look of concern etching over his features.

Ever since accepting his role as the Father, Obi-Wan stayed around Mortis to help Anakin and guide his way. A true Master in death and in life. But he had no idea where Obi-Wan went off to when he wasn’t there; Anakin couldn’t make out his Force signature anywhere on Mortis during those times. He knew Yoda lived on as a Force spirit as well, and he hadn’t seen the wizened Jedi Master since Endor.

Not that such a thing really bothered Anakin.

He communed with Jedi of old; Not to make excuses for himself, but to ask for their forgiveness and their acceptance of his place on Mortis. He searched among them for Ahsoka, and never found her.

That was when he looked to the galaxy. He found her alive and put his power into pushing her toward his son and daughter. Hoping they could find solace in each other.

Anakin believed he fulfilled the prophecy of old when he destroyed Darth Sidious and brought balance to the Force. He didn’t have a Son and Daughter on his plane to worry about. Despite the one niggling scratch, he believed all was well.

So when Obi-Wan came with alarming news, Anakin nearly fell into old habits and had an outburst.

“What’s wrong, Obi-Wan?” Anakin asked without taking his seat on the throne. He chose instead to stand in front of his friend and speak face-to-face. He never wanted to appear like a king in front of Obi-Wan. He just wanted to be Anakin Skywalker.

“I’ve been hearing cries... A disturbance in the Force.”

“Is it an entire planet?” It had to have been many voices for Obi-Wan to hear it without actively listening.

“No,” Obi-Wan looked uncharacteristically sheepish for a moment, and looked down to the floor. “It’s the cry of one boy.”

“One boy is crying so loud that you can hear him in Mortis? Were you listening for him? Is he strong in the Force? Can you send Luke towards him?”

In his time since his last meeting with his son, Luke had started his own Jedi Temple. Anakin looked in at the progress sometimes and couldn’t help a certain fatherly pride.

“Not at all. I didn’t know I had anything to be listening for, otherwise I would have been. It’s your grandson. The son of Leia Organa and Han Solo.”

Ben?

Anakin looked onto Luke’s Academy and saw Ben there. He was a quiet boy, one who kept himself to himself most of the time. He often sat alone during meal times and never snuck into friends dormitories in the night. But Anakin never heard a cry so loud that it might have shook the Force.

“What did you hear, exactly?”

“I heard one cry. It was more like a plea, he was reaching out with the Force begging anyone who could hear for guidance. That he’d been having dark thoughts. That he’s being led down a path that he doesn’t want to follow.

“And then the cry was shut out, like a window slamming down on me. I thought for a moment that he’d been killed, but I checked and he’s still with Luke. There’s a darkness that surrounds him, one so palpable I could nearly feel tendrils of black smoke floating around him, choking the light right out of him.”

Obi-Wan exhaled a long breath, like he was relieved to get the information out to someone who could help. Anakin couldn’t believe he was that someone.

“So something... something is influencing Ben? He is good. I’ve felt it.”

Anakin sat on the throne, but not in the gesture of a composed and exalted Father, more in a show of exhausted desperation, pleading out to the Force, _please don’t do this to him._

“His mother says she’s felt darkness surrounding him since he was in the womb.”

He didn’t ask when Obi-Wan spoke to Leia. He had never managed to reach his daughter.

“Someone influenced Ben before he was even born. As what? An attack on Leia?”

“An attack on Skywalkers, more likely.”

There was only one man who would wage a personal attack on Skywalkers, and affect a baby in order to do it. And Anakin already killed that man.

“Darth Sidious had... followers that lived on a Sith world, but none of them have any power on their own. They couldn’t use the Force, they just worshipped those who could. I don’t think they could have done anything to Ben.”

“What about Sidious himself? Was there anything, an artifact or something, that he could’ve programmed to hold him after he died? Could his spirit live on in Endor?”

Anakin’s head swam with the possibilities. _The dark side of the Force is a pathway to many abilities some would consider unnatural._ There were any number of things that could’ve happened, but he couldn’t truly fathom the why or the how.

“You know, Palpatine kept a lot of secrets from me too,” Anakin said, perhaps a bit too defensively. “He concealed nearly all his true plans from me.”

“I know, Anakin,” Obi-Wan said in a failed attempt at reassurance.

“It’s not as if we had dinner together every night, we only spoke on missions, and at all other times we were looking for ways to kill each other - ”

“Anakin, _I know._ ”

“Yes. Sorry.”

After moments of sitting together in silence, Obi-Wan whispered, “Can you reach him?”

After allowing himself righteous anger over his lost grandson, Anakin sat down on his throne and tempered the fires burning in his soul. If he was to reach Ben, he couldn’t be a raging forest fire attempting to burn the galaxy to its last atom.

He had to be the lone candle.

So he reached out of Mortis and into the galaxy. He reached out until he located the quiet warmth of his son. When he found Luke in his Temple, age had taken to his features but his Force signature remained the same. All that surrounded him were brought into his presence and comforted by it. They looked to him as a symbol, as a legend.

Luke’s resolve was slowly cracking under the pressure, tiny shatterpoints forming around him, sure to break one day with only a tap.

Resisting the urge to comfort his son, to share in the burden of a hero’s legacy, Anakin looked to the Temple at large in search for his grandson.

He found Ben in a hut outside the Temple, completely isolated from the other students and his uncle. He sat at a desk in the hut with a bottle of black ink at his side and a quill that he used to write on a piece of flimsi.

Anakin never knew someone who could write with their hands. Even during his lifetime in the Clone Wars, communication was done with hologram or datapads. What could Ben possibly be writing longhand?

On closer inspection, it didn’t appear that Ben was writing anything. He was working slowly and meticulously on each letter, forming its curves and lines with such care until each word was flawlessly formed on the page.

> _Han Solo  
>  Leia Organa  
>  Luke Skywalker  
>  Ben Solo  
>  Uncle Lando  
>  Chewbacca  
>  Millenium Falcon_

All he was sure of, was that there was no cries coming from the boys mind. Anakin was careful to tap on it gently, so as not to cause a disturbance. He knew he couldn’t visit Ben outright; it would be a sign of disrespect to his daughter, who never accepted him as her father.

He only wished to check on him.

Ben lifted his head from the page and dropped the quill. Afraid that he’d been found, Anakin moved to leave when he heard the sounds.

A voice in the back of Ben’s head. So faint, it was almost a whisper, and for a moment Anakin thought it might’ve been coming from Ben himself.

But it was a voice he recognized.

_They do not appreciate you. They forgot you. They left you to rot in this hut so they could be a family without you. You can find a family that wants you._

_Remember the Knights of Ren?_

Ben let out a shaky breath, and returned to his flimsi, where he discarded the list of his family members and began a new list.

> _Vicrul  
>  Ap’lek  
>  Ushar  
>  Trudgen  
>  Cardo  
>  Kuruk  
>  Kylo Ren_

He repeated the names carefully, writing the last out 3 times before he wrote “Knights of Ren”.

Anakin travelled to what felt like every corner of the galaxy and never found a clan called the Knights of Ren. Could they be a new faction?

People who work for Darth Sidious?

When Ben put his quill down again, the voice started again, and that’s when Anakin reached out to his grandson.

Only to find the sheen of glass forming a wall around Ben’s mind.

Anakin tried to connect with the glass using the Force and got pushed back so violently that he was worried Ben could hear him.

Ben didn’t notice him at all.

The voice kept whispering, and Anakin kept trying to shatter the glass.

Accepting defeat against the wall, Anakin only sat on the other side, keeping a candle lit. A flicker of light pulling against the voice in Ben’s head.

Anakin kept his small light burning for Ben at all times, even after he returned to Mortis and continued his search for the darkness surrounding his grandson. Every once in awhile, he’d make the distinct effort to tap at the glass through the Force. To wake Ben up and pull him to the light waiting for him on the other side.

Every time he wanted to interfere, to talk to Luke directly, he need only remember the bat from his vision that took on the form of Leia. And the eagle, who held a man as his prisoner. 

Now he need only find the desert girl. She was the only element he needed.

The key to the mysterious rising darkness.

So he went to the only place he could connect with the darkness on Mortis. 

With a wave of his hand, he set the sun on Mortis and dark spread over the planet like a blanket. He followed the darkness into the caves of fire, where the dagger of Mortis once lay.

Twelve years of meditation and a clear mind brought Anakin something he could never achieve while alive; the ability to look into the dark side without letting it infect his mind and body. He could tap into its powers and it wouldn’t overwhelm him, like it had during his lifetime. So he stood in the raging fires and looked through the cloud of the dark side.

He climbed out of pits and walked through caves, searching for the silhouette of Darth Sidious. When he found a form, it wasn’t that of his old Master.

Dark Side tendrils formed around a bat that beat its wings over the forests of Yavin IV, soaring over the Temple where Ben and Luke lie. A bat the size of a ship, with red lines running parallel down his skull. As Anakin’s spirit drew closer to the bat, he made out the shape of a dagger at its side.

“The Son is back!” Anakin roared through the monastery, the familiar fury running warm in his veins like a visit from an old friend. “He’s back and he’s terrorizing my sons Jedi Temple!”

Like the ghost that he was, Obi-Wan materialized in the corner.

“You killed the Son.”

“I also killed Palpatine.”

“So is the Son pretending to be Palpatine? Or are they both back and in league together?”

Anakin threw up his hands in frustration, completely infuriated that with all the power that comes with Mortis, he did not have the power to prevent the darkness that surrounded his family.

“Does it matter?!” he exclaimed, stomping in circles around Obi-Wan. “I’m going back to Yavin IV to defeat them BOTH, once and for all!”

Before he could even close his eyes to return to the forest, Obi-Wan grabbed onto his wrist, not with any true force but with the gentle touch of a brother.

“Remember your visions, Anakin. You cannot interfere. This is someone else’s fight now. Maybe even Ben’s.”

“How could it be someone else’s fight when my own is still living?!”

Obi-Wan took a seat at the foot on the throne, and gestured for Anakin to join him. Taking a deep breath to contain himself, Anakin sat beside Obi-Wan, still nearly shaking with fury.

“I don’t know how the Son is back. It might not even be the Son you killed. We don’t know how or if Palpatine has returned. All we can do is guide the next generation through the Force. We cannot fight this battle for them.

“All we can do is meditate, and ask the Force for a clearer picture. And I can’t think of a better place to do that than in your own monastery.”

####  6 Years before TFA 

Anakin spent every day and all of his considerable Force power by Ben Solo’s side, keeping a candle vigil and praying to the Force that he would reach out for it and find his grandfather. He went after the voices in Ben’s head every time he heard them, only to be greeted by the impenetrable glass wall.

He was never able to shatter the glass.

When he stopped dwelling in his own failure, Anakin heard another voice reaching out to Ben. 

The deep cadence of a modulator that went through his own battered lungs and spoke with a voice that wasn’t his own. A voice that he thought he was rid of for the rest of eternity.

The voice of Darth Vader called to his grandson, and Ben readily answered, nearly crying for joy at a family member reaching out to him.

Anakin screamed through the Force to not listen, that is not your grandfather, _I_ am your grandfather and I’ve been waiting for you.

His cries only went to a sheen of glass that barely cracked at the sound of his voice.

 _Fulfill my destiny,_ Vader said to Ben Solo. _Finish what I could not._

Ben sat on his knees in his hut and said to the darkness,

“Yes, grandfather. I never knew, my mother never told me.

“Show me the ways of the dark side, and I will fulfill your destiny.”

The voice of Vader reached through the sheen of glass and snuffed out the light of the candle.

“Ben, _NO!_ ”

The sound of his son jolted Anakin into awareness of the real world. 

He came to his feet in one fluid motion and reached into the outer reaches of the galaxy and found his son’s still beating heart. He let out a breath of relief, and attempting to maintain calm, he spread from his spot in the monastery and thought of the forests of Yavin IV, where Luke held his Jedi Temple.

Perched on top of the hill, he found the Jedi Temple burning, a crushed hut laying at it’s base, and a boy standing away from the explosion with tears in his eyes.

_Ben didn’t do this._

He knew instinctively before even realizing that he had the thought. He looked into his grandson’s heart and he did not find the cold wrath of fury similar to Anakin’s own. Instead he found a gentle, beating heart surrounded by darkness, desperate to escape it’s clutches. Anakin made to appear before the boy, to apologize for not appearing sooner, when he heard the warbling of an old friend.

> Master.

The distinct binary of R2-D2 called to him and Anakin, forgetting his troubles for that one moment, whipped around to find the blue and white droid staring up at him.

“Artoo?” The astromech sat outside the fallen hut, moving from side to side and speaking so quickly that Anakin couldn’t decipher it.

“You can see me?” So far Anakin had only appeared to organic creatures that he knew in life. Obi-Wan was the first person to materialize as a spirit - their knowledge on the power was still limited.

> Of course I can see you, [redacted]. I’ve missed you.

Against his better judgment, Anakin laughed and went to the droid, taking him in an embrace that he wasn’t sure Artoo would accept.

The droid did not move from his touch.

“Where is Luke, buddy?”

Artoo warbled and gestured toward the fallen hut.

“He’s under there?!”

> Yes. Master Ben tore the hut down.

As if on cue, a ship flew overhead with Ben’s Force signature crying out in the pilot’s seat.

“Why would Ben tear down the hut?”

> I do not know. Is Master Luke harmed?

Anakin reached out through the Force and felt the splintered wood sliding against itself and the personal belongings that lay forgotten underneath the rubble. A bottle of ink spilled on the ground and Ben’s quill and flimsi were left forgotten in a box. After pushing Ben’s belongings aside with great care, Anakin lifted the rubble of the fallen hut to find his still breathing son.

“He’s going to be okay, Artoo.” Anakin smiled, but he didn’t make a move to wake Luke. “I need you to be with him when he wakes up. He’s going to need you.”

The Temple brightly burned as Anakin thought of the pain his son would endure when he healed. It was nearly enough to make him forget his teaching. Enough to forget the vision of Leia as a dark side entity.

> You are not staying.

It wasn’t a question. Artoo always knew what Anakin was thinking - sometimes before he was even thinking it.

“I can’t stay, old friend. I have my own fight to win.” Anakin reached out to the rubble again with his mind and found what was calling to him. He reached out his hand and pulled the lightsaber into his waiting palm.

The blue blade flared to life as Anakin remembered it’s lightness, how it always felt right in his hand. Like an extension of himself. The red blade was modeled after this one, but it was always too heavy, too clunky, difficult to maneuver, and never comfortable. Like everything in the Vader suit.

> Will I see you again?

Anakin rested a hand on Artoo’s dome and stayed like that, another snapshot in his mind that he would keep forever. Anakin and R2-D2 together again. A moment he could always return to.

“I will always be with you, Artoo. I promise.”

Artoo warbled a good-bye before returning to Luke’s side. Knowing his son was safe, Anakin bade good-bye to his friend, grabbed the box and the lightsaber and faded into the burning night.

Anakin wasn’t sure if he could transport objects through the Force, given that he was no longer a physical being. His likeness could manifest and he could even give the illusion of touch, and he could use the Force more powerfully than ever, but he was not alive. 

So when he found his grandson’s box of belongings and his old lightsaber, he was adamant that he wanted them back in Mortis with him. It wasn’t even a decision he consciously made; all he could think of was the lost boy who quieted the voices in his head when used his ink and quill. He couldn’t just leave those items to turn to dust on Yavin IV.

Anakin materialized in the courtyard on Mortis with his old lightsaber attached to his belt and Ben’s box at his feet. He asked the Force for something and it delivered. 

“So you felt it too?” Obi-Wan leaned against a standing stone, looking as if he had been waiting there for Anakin his entire life. “The disturbance in the Force.”

“I heard Luke scream out,” Anakin admitted, hoping to not be lectured about interfering. He didn’t actually do anything to stop anyone. He just wanted to make sure Luke was okay.

“I’m glad you went, Anakin,” Obi-Wan said. “We shouldn’t interfere but I understand that we can’t just stand around when Luke cries out his nephews name.”

“Wait...” Anakin relished the rare moment when Obi-Wan admitted he was right. “Are you saying I did the right thing? Me, the Father of Mortis? Who could’ve possibly foreseen - ”

“Are you quite finished?”

“Yes,” Anakin grumbled and picked up the box at his feet. “Luke’s Temple was torched. Most of his students perished in the fire.”

“Ben?”

“Ben is okay. I saw him at the wreckage. He got on a ship and flew away before he saw me.”

“No,” Obi-Wan shook his head sadly and walked toward Anakin. “I don’t mean did he survive. I mean, did he...?” He trailed off and looked gently at his old friend, not wanting to ask the question plaguing his mind.

“I have no reason to believe he torched the Temple. Especially not with the Son still flying around the galaxy. Ben is good. He has a good heart, I’ve felt it. He wouldn’t... He didn’t feel like I felt. When I...”

Anakin didn’t need to finish the sentence, or admit how Vader felt after destroying the Jedi Temple on Coruscant.

Triumph. Ben Solo probably never felt triumphant in his entire life.

“You held on to my lightsaber. For Luke.” Anakin shifted the box in his hands while looking at Obi-Wan.

“Yes...”

“I need you to hold on to this box.” He put the box in Obi-Wan’s hands, who took it reluctantly. “And this.” He unhooked the lightsaber from his belt and laid it on top, already feeling it’s loss from his hand. So many years without the saber and it only took a few moments to become accustomed to it again.

“What am I to do with it?” Obi-Wan asked, not in a sarcastically argumentative way like his normal demeanor. In a manner that suggested he’d do whatever Anakin asked no matter what.

Even after all these years, Anakin would never be used to his Master looking to him for guidance.

“I want Ben to have the box when he’s ready.”

“And the lightsaber?”

“When the right person comes along, I’ll know.”

When Obi-Wan left with the box, Anakin set out to do the only thing that mattered anymore:

Shatter the glass and find the Son.


	4. TFA

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The power of the dyad strengthens the Force.  
> Anakin finds the heir to his lightsaber.

When Luke cut himself off from the Force, it was like Anakin lost a piece of himself. Without realizing it, he allowed himself to depend on the Force signature of his son to maintain balance, to always remind him of the light both in the galaxy and within himself. Of the one candles that always burned underneath the black terror of Vader. 

Losing that felt like being in the Tusken Raider camp again, holding his mother’s dying body. He felt like he was lost in one of his nightmares, the ones where Padme died and he would have, and did do anything to stop it from coming to pass. He felt like he was strapped onto a table with a mask being forced onto his face while mechanics breathed for him. 

Completely helpless.

Until he felt the force awaken again.

First he thought it was Luke, reconnecting with the light. When he realized that Luke still sat on Ahch To in exile, he believed it was Ben, returning to the light of his family.

Instead, Ben had donned a black helmet reminiscent of Vader and often prayed to the destroyed mask, vowing to finish what Anakin started. It was the promise from the cave on Ahch To - the one he ignored in favor of the image of his daughter as a bat. Even after forsaking Palpatine, Anakin still hadn’t learned: the dark side can’t be trusted. The image of Leia was likely there to serve as a distraction from the real danger.

Ben Solo wanting to follow in the footsteps of Darth Vader.

Ben answered to a dark side user who went by the name of Snoke; he spoke of watching the Galactic Empire rise and fall, but Anakin never felt the man’s presence during the Imperial reign. It wasn’t hard to believe that the man was once a grifting dark-sider that saw the vacuum of power left in Palpatine’s wake and took advantage. He often heard Snoke’s voice echoing in Ben’s thoughts, but the trail always led back to the glass wall.

“Obi Wan,” Anakin called through the Force for his old Master, who materialized seconds later.

“Did you feel it too?” Obi Wan asked. “The awakening?”

“I was hoping it was Luke or Ben.” Anakin moved toward the stairs that lead out of his monastery, hoping fresh air would give him much needed clarity. “But both are still lost.”

“You believe Ben is under the influence of the Son?”

“I know he’s under the influence of the Son. The Son posing as me, and as Supreme Leader Snoke. I don’t know if Snoke is real man with his mind manipulated through the Force, or if he’s just a puppet for the Son. Every time I get close to answers...”

“The glass wall.”

When he left the monastery and stood outside, Anakin turned the night into day so he could watch the light spread over Mortis like a blanket. The sounds of wildlife came alive and for a moment, Anakin felt like he was living again. Like the galaxy was ahead of him and all he had to do was fly his starfighter to Ahch To, get his son, and fly them both to Ilum to get Ben. 

And they could all go home to Padme.

When he dreamed of what life could be, Padme was always the clearest picture in his mind.

“I think I’ve found the source of the awakening,” Obi Wan said carefully. Though he never said so, Anakin knew Obi Wan could feel when he thought of Padme. She was not Force sensitive, but she still had a signature that permeated through the Force from the mere mention of her name. The same kind of signature Luke gave off; everything he had, he got from Padme. Obi Wan brushed past the memories, and finished, “She is moving toward your lightsaber. The Force knows where I left it and every step she takes moves her closer.”

“A desert girl?” Anakin asked though he knew the answer.

“Yes. A scavenger from Jakku.”

Anakin looked to the sky, nearly wishing for night again so he could see the clarity of the stars. After being dead for so many years, he should have possessed a wisdom beyond the mortal. He was just as lost as the Jedi Knight who was manipulated by the dark side of the Force.

“The First Order has built a weapon of mass destruction. Bigger than the Death Star.”

“I know,” Anakin cradled his head in his hands and his shoulders shook with frustration. “And I know we can’t get involved, but The Son is still out there, and he’s already turned my grandson, sent my son into exile, now his sights will be set on the scavenger, and that’s only after he’s destroyed another planet, using the husk of the Jedi crystal caves, where we went through the Gathering! How can we just stand idly by?”

Anakin was openly weeping now, and Obi Wan only stood by his side as solid as the mountains that rose over the monastery. 

“This is not our fight anymore, Anakin,” Obi Wan whispered gently. “A new hero will rise. All we can do is guide her through the Force.”

“And if the Son gets to her too?”

“Another hero will rise, and they will be called by your lightsaber, and they will keep rising until one is able to take up the mantle.”

Anakin nearly scoffed. “The mantle of my lightsaber?”

“The weapon of the Chosen One.”

“So Chosen that I couldn’t even save my own family, and then I have to stand around on Mortis and wait for them all to either die or be seduced by the dark side. Like I was.”

“I never said we have to just stand around,” Obi Wan raised an eyebrow at Anakin. “The scavenger Rey will save the physical world. We can still save the spiritual one. Do you think our life forces were extended for no reason?”

“I thought it was to save my grandson.”

“Maybe it’s to guide Rey, and she will save your grandson.”

Anakin reached through the Force to find the beating conflicted heart of his grandson, only to find it different. Still conflicted, but now... tethered. Two hearts beating in sync, connected together through the Force.

The glass wall stood as resolute as ever, and Anakin, Obi-Wan's advice to heart, expended every bit of Force energy into breaking through. All of the power of Anakin resulted in a singular crack running down the middle of the wall. Smoke slipped through the crack and it was gone more quickly than it came. 

“I know you’re here,” Anakin spoke through the glass wall, pushing his voice through the Force with so much strength he was sure the entire galaxy would get his message. “I know you’re here, and I know what you’re doing, and I will stop you.”

_You’ll never stop me, Anakin Skywalker._

The voice of The Son rang through his head and reverberated through the Force, and Anakin took all the frustration of his heart and punched the glass wall with all the strength of his anger. 

“I _will_ stop you. I stopped you on Mortis, and I will stop you in the galaxy!”

The cackling laughter sounded in his head and faded farther and farther away until Anakin was questioning whether it actually happened.

_The only thing the dark loves is the light._

His years old vision from the cave on Ahch To came back to him and he remembered the words Leia said to him before she saved Luke. The dark has only one weakness.

“I think I know how to stop the son.”

When Obi-Wan left Ben’s box of belongings and Anakin’s lightsaber in the safe hands of Maz Kanata, he let go of his own desires and will to change, and knew the Force would lead the new heir of the saber to the castle of Takodana. His own interference would only stand in the way of the will of the Force - of course, because he assumed the new heir to the saber would be the heir to the Skywalker legacy, Ben Solo. 

So when a scavenger named Rey arrived on the castle, he accepted her with open arms. She walked down the stairs and through the Force and his connection with the box, he gently called for her while letting the Force do it’s work. 

She laid a delicate hand on the legacy lightsaber and was pulled into a world of the Force, visions spread out over the years that gave Obi-Wan a glimpse into her life. A small child, sold into junk trading by parents with no care for the danger she would live through. A girl learning to survive on her own, fashioning a staff to use for defense (never attack, he hoped), and building and repairing tech from the wastes of the Battle of Jakku. Much like Anakin, she had an affinity for fixing things; it shut off her neverending train of thoughts, the ones asking when her parents were coming back for her. 

Rey of Jakku wore her denial as a badge of honor.

When her visions left Jakku, Obi-Wan could only assume they were looking into her possible future. An island. Luke’s island, the site of the first Jedi Temple. A battlefield with rain pouring down on her, with men cloaked in black. One moves toward her. Kylo Ren.

She is pulled out of the vision before it could continue, and Obi-Wan whispered through the first.

_Rey, These are your first steps_.

Rey disconnected herself from the Force, and all Obi-Wan could do was hope she’d find her way back to it. Trust in the Force.

As he always had.

Since ascending to become one with the Force, Anakin only had access to those who ascended with him. The Daughter gave away her life Force after she imbued it into Ahsoka; she was unable to ascend as he and Obi-Wan had. Other than figments of his imagination, Anakin had not been able to interact with those who had died but didn’t have the Force. He never put an honest effort into the venture. Too much temptation, temptation that was his path to the dark side in the first place.

Now he had to put aside his fears, look within himself, and attempt communication with those truly dead without succumbing to his own weaknesses.

The first person he would call out toward was one who already visited him; his visit with his mother was most certainly a figment of his imagination that only came to him when he was still so weak following his death, but she was the most familiar to him.

“Mom,” he called through the Force, looking up to the sky, as if waiting for his mother to descend from the clouds at his beckoning. “Mom, can you hear me?”

Every atom in his being was calling out with the Force, connecting with every corner of the galaxy, and he could feel every person, every blade of grass, every star shining down on them, every spaceship, and he was all of those things, and he held them all in his palm. He let them all go and held onto to only one word. “Mom?” 

The normally still wind on Mortis wrapped around him and hugged his skin so tightly like a hug. It ruffled his hair and swirled about him in an embrace so tightly, Anakin knew he got his answer. His chest lifted and all the heaviness came out of his body, and for a moment, he was in the wind with his mother.

“I’ve missed you, mom.”

The grass moved toward him and his nostrils filled with the clean scent of his mother, the scent a little boy associated with home.

“I’m trying to find someone. Can you help me?”

The tether between Ben and the scavenger Rey bridged with such ferocity that there was an actual pull through the Force, like the strength of a taut rope. Anakin went through the Force to find Rey strapped to a chair on Starkiller Base with Ben standing over her, their minds inexplicably bridged.

It had been thousands of years since there was a bridging of minds in the Force. Two souls sharing one life Force, one mind, one spirituality. Whatever one thought, the other would think. When one was hurt, the other would hurt. A dyad in the Force, light and dark coming together to form a gray so bright it could shatter the galaxy.

Anakin was too disconnected from the galaxy, too connected to the persona of Darth Vader to truly be able to save his grandson. All he could do was keep the candle burning brightly and hope Ben moved toward it.

But Rey of Jakku...

Rey of Jakku might be the only person in the galaxy capable of saving Ben Solo. She might be the only person who needed to be saved by Ben Solo.

The two loneliest souls in the galaxy, come together to form one. 

And if Ben Solo couldn’t see his candle, Anakin might have to start burning one for Rey. Another child born of sand and desert, destined for more than she could ever know. The difference between them was apparent to Anakin; he left his mother. He looked up to the stars shining over the bleak landscape of Tatooine and vowed to see them all.

Rey didn’t want to see all the stars. She only wanted to have a family.

The light flickering for Ben burned brighter as Anakin put all his power into strengthening the dyad.

Snow fell on Starkiller Base as it’s infrastructure crumbled around the falling planet that once housed the Gathering of the Jedi, the sacred site where crystals were harvested. The power of the crystals now went into the Son’s plans of ravage across the galaxy.

But Ilum did not have to only be a planet of despair. Ilum was where Anakin harvested the blue crystal of his lightsaber - and it could be where Rey of Jakku finds the same crystal, calling out to her like it called to Anakin before her.

“That lightsaber,” Ben called out in the fury of battle. “It belongs to me.”

“Come and get it.”

Ben, damaged by the hit from Chewbacca’s bowcaster and reeling from the murder of his father, went for Anakin’s lightsaber. Even in his unbalanced state, he could have handily defeated both Rey and her friend Finn. 

The power of the dark side.

He punched his gaping wound to fuel his hatred and the pain spread through the Force, affecting both Anakin and Rey. Rey lay unconscious on the ground, and with Ben distracted by Finn, Anakin went to her.

He reached through the Force and found her wound. With a gentle tap through the Force, Rey was brought back to consciousness, though he could do nothing for the requisite pain she felt from Ben’s wound. Anakin dematerialized before he was seen.

His lightsaber sat upright in the snow, calling out so loudly through the Force is was practically screaming for it’s rightful owner. Ben defeated Finn and held out his hand, waiting for his family saber to come soaring through the air.

_I’m sorry, Ben._

Anakin put up a glass wall of his own, blocking Ben from taking his saber out of the snow. The saber still called out for its owner and was only silenced when it went careening toward Rey of Jakku.

The lightsaber lay in her hand, like it always belonged there while Rey only stared at it in abject shock, not quite believing that the lightsaber of Luke Skywalker chose her over Ben Solo.

Ben only stared at her in awe, his anger completely snuffed out as he marveled at woman standing before him.

He hit his wound again, and the fight commenced.

Rey fought without the Force, relying only on her skills as a fighter and a scrappy scavenger to defeat the menace she knew as Kylo Ren. 

Ben held her against a cliff, and told her, _“You need a teacher!_

_“I can show you the ways of the Force!”_

“The Force?”

The light that always lived inside Rey flickered in that moment and Anakin stoked it with his own candle.

_Use the Force, Rey._ He silently passed on the message to her, begging her to use her own power against him. To not be tamed by the leash of the dark side, to use the light that burned so brightly within her. Use the Force.

When Rey finally tapped into her innate abilities, the Force nearly burst with the combined power of the dyad. Anakin used the momentum of their power to find the glass wall again.

He reached out and with one touch of his finger, the glass shattered and there stood the Son, in his full glory from Mortis.

“Anakin Skywalker,” he snarled. “It took you long enough to find me. And you thought you could replace my Father?”

“Why are you going after my grandson?” He didn’t even know that was the question he most wanted answered, but in his shock at actually shattering the glass, he realized it was the only question that mattered. “Why can’t you leave him alone?”

“My sister was destroyed for you apprentice,” The Son’s hate reverberated through the Force, nearly bringing Anakin’s own hatred to the forefront of his mind. He fought with every fiber of his being to snuff it out. “Now I have destroyed your grandson. Like you were once destroyed.”

The Son let out the hideous cackle of Darth Sidious, and before Anakin could reach out for him, the glass wall went up again, standing as strong as ever.


	5. TLJ

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> During the events of TLJ, Anakin and the Jedi devise a plan to defeat the Son.

“Rey of Jakku needs our guidance,” Anakin sat upon the dais of the Father and for the first time since ascending to the Force, he addresses all spirits at once. He couldn’t see the face of many of the Jedi, but he felt their presence surrounding them as they answered their call to Mortis. Their welcoming presence. Their acceptance of him. 

The generosity of heart that the Jedi still carried even after his actions as Darth Vader was enough of a candle to burn for the rest of his existence.

“Interfere in the events of the galaxy, we cannot,” Yoda said solemnly without letting Anakin finish his thought. “Immortal, we are. End every petty squabble among mortals, we cannot.”

A murmur of agreement rang through the monastery when Anakin cleared his throat to speak again.

“I’m not saying to rush into battle against the First Order. With my son having cut himself off from the Force, Rey just may be the last Jedi. We cannot let her be alone in the galaxy. She needs a teacher.”

“I don’t believe she would be open to us as teachers,” Qui Gon Jinn said, his voice silencing the room. “Her journey in the Force just began. She is still getting her bearings. We can't bombard her with Force spirits.”

Obi-Wan stepped in, surprisingly to Anakin, in his favor. “But we can guide her toward the light. The Jedi Order is over, but Rey can rebuild and correct the mistakes of our past. Her only offer of teaching thus far has come from a fallen Ben Solo; a man that, quite frankly, should not be teaching anyone.”

“We cannot forsake Rey,” a voice that Anakin had not heard in a very long time spoke. The voice of Adi Gallia, dead long before the sack of the Jedi Temple. Killed in battle of the Clone Wars by Savage Oppress and Darth Maul. The first Jedi guided to by Qui Gon to ascend, and had grown to be one of the wisest spirits. “She is the future of the Jedi. Even if we can’t communicate with her, we must watch over her.”

“Rey is likely going to have to face off the physical embodiment of the Son,” Anakin said. “The Son has chosen Snoke as a vessel to terrorize both the galaxy and the Force. He is not a simple foe. She will need our guidance for her coming battle. Her and Ben Solo both.”

“Ben Solo has victim to the dark side. He is a pawn of the Son. We’ve already lost him. “ Anakin identified the voice of Luminara Unduli.

“I also fell to the dark side. I was just as much Sidious’s pawn as Ben is the Son’s. All it takes is one person to believe in his goodness. I believe Rey is that person for him. They are... they’re connected in the Force. Their minds are bridged, and even when they’re not communicating, they’re connected by a tether. I used the power of their dyad to shatter the glass and face off the Son. We need both Rey of Jakku and Ben Solo if we hope to restore balance. One will not work without the other.”

There was a pregnant silence before Obi-Wan finally spoke. “I will watch over the girl as she goes on her journey. Try to send her toward the light. Let you know when her and Ben’s minds have bridged.”

“Thank you, Obi-Wan,” Anakin said sincerely, thankful to have the wisest of the Jedi in his corner. “As for the rest of us, we need to prepare for the coming battle with the Son. When Rey and Ben destroy his physical body, we need to be there to be rid of his spirit, once and for all. There’s only one way to do that.”

A quiet murmur spread through the monastery as the voices and spirits of past Jedi conferred over what they just heard.

“Just tell us what we need to do.”

  
  


With the Jedi understanding the plan to defeat the Son, Anakin was left with his thoughts while he waited for Rey and Ben to move toward their destinies. Ben Solo was still playing at Kylo Ren, trying so hard to stay dark, suppressing feelings as the conflict in his very soul tore him apart from the inside. A feeling Anakin understood all too well. Every evening he listened to his grandson pray to the mask of Vader, as the Son took on his persona and pretended to be him. Anakin allowed the rage in his chest to boil, but he was no longer a slave to it. 

Rey boarded the Millennium Falcon and went on her mission to find Luke. To be taught by Luke. All Anakin could do was pray to the Force that Luke would listen - would be open to hearing what she had to say. To returning to the Force.

Anakin’s greatest fear was that Luke would die still cut off, and not ascend. To be with his father, with Yoda and Obi-Wan, to meet all the Jedi of old. That Anakin would never be able to bring his son to his monastery and look on him with pride, knowing that Luke was the greatest Jedi who ever lived.

His candle burned at both ends, one side for Luke and one side for Ben. He tried to save a flicker for Rey as well.

Fresh off the battle on Starkiller Base, his face nearly ripped in two by a scar gifted to him by his other half, Ben Solo donned the helmet of Kylo Ren and walked into Snoke’s Throne Room. Anakin only got glimpses and feelings with the glass wall still at its fullest strength. He heard Ben’s quiet indignity from being shamed by Snoke. The small plea of, _I’ve given everything I have to you. To the dark side._

Anakin used all his might to send Ben a message through the Force. _Yes, Ben, yes, the dark side is a trap, you are finally learning it’s cruelty. The dark side will make you it’s slave, abandon it._

He could physically feel the wall slamming down on his message to Ben, and the last sound he heard was Force lightning being shot at his grandson’s chest as he fell to the ground.

It was nearly enough for Anakin to abandon his plan with the Son and shatter the glass with all the Force of Darth Vader.

Anakin came back to the world on Mortis. He moved to the outside and sat in the grass, taking in the scent of the world and the life that blossomed around him. He fashioned his yard outside the monastery to look like the field where he had a picnic with Padme on Naboo. He sat for as long as it took to feel serenity and to quell the hatred of Darth Vader that still sprang up in his chest in times of weakness. 

_Anakin Skywalker is stronger than Darth Vader._

He felt Qui Gon Jinn’s presence before he heard the words spoken.

“Sometimes it feels like Vader would have gotten the job done faster than Anakin Skywalker.”

Qui Gon’s gentle laughter filled the air around him.

_He probably would have. But he was a slave. A slave to Darth Sidious, a slave to the dark side, and a slave to his own anger. He burned in his own flame. You, Anakin Skywalker, you are the flame that will guide others to the light. Darth Vader knows nothing of your power._

His former master drifted away with the wind, and Anakin was left alone again, the field of Naboo providing comfort to his soul. He would not be ashamed of his earlier anger. He would not deny it. Only learn from it. His anger would be owned by him, and he would not be owned by his anger.

When he was at peace again, he heard Obi-Wan calling for him.

With a thought, he was by his friend’s side. At the cave on Ahch-To.

“I wouldn’t go in there,” Anakin warned lightly. “Last time I walked in there, I ended up in a maze of dark side visions.”

“Imagine that,” Obi-Wan quipped. “Anakin, letting his curiosity get the better of him. Who would have thought?”

“Very funny. Why did you call me here? Is Luke alright? Is he going to come back to the Force?”

“Quite the contrary, I’m afraid. It seems Rey has found him, and he’s only told her to go away. He even threw your lightsaber on the ground.”

“Threw my lightsaber on the ground?”

“Yes. It seems your son has as much respect for the ancient Jedi weapon as you did. How many lightsabers _did_ you go through as a Padawan?”

“The business on Geonosis doesn’t count.”

“Well, regardless...” Obi-Wan gestured in front of them.

Rey followed Luke up the mountain of the island, as he muttered about his irritation by her presence. Relentless, she kept up pace with him.

“He refuses to teach her?” Anakin said, disappointment obvious in his voice.

“Says the Jedi Order needs to end.”

“It did end.”

“Oh, you saw to that alright.” He and Anakin had chosen to taken a dark humor approach to his time as Darth Vader.

They only watched as Luke and Rey bickered, and Anakin could feel Rey’s spirits dropping as she contemplated if she should even train as a Jedi. She was already considering finding someone else who could defeat Kylo Ren when whispers sounded through the island.

“What are those?” Anakin whipped around, peering into the cave to make sure it wasn’t the dark side vision. He felt like borrowing his old lightsaber from Rey.

“This place is steeped in Force power,” Obi-Wan explained. “The site of the first Jedi Temple. The ancient Jedi texts. There will be powers here beyond our understanding.”

Rey moved toward the voices that led her to the texts.

“We need to leave it to them now,” Anakin whispered, unable to believe his own voice. “There’s nothing more we can do for them. You and Yoda will still keep watch?”

“Of course, Anakin.”

And he drifted off of Ahch To, letting Rey and Luke decide their own fates.

  
  


_Luke._

_Leia._

Anakin jerked out of his trance when he felt the familiar signature of his son come alive in the Force once again. His children called out for each other in the Force, and though Anakin wanted to go to both of them, he instead chose to stay on Mortis. To allow them to have this moment of just them.

Instead he went again to Ahch-To, his light burning brightly enough that Luke would feel it, and searched for Rey of Jakku.

It couldn’t be a coincidence that Luke returned to the Force only days after meeting her. Rey was the tether to his grandson, and the one who brought his son back to the Force, where he belonged. 

Though he had no connection with the girl, Anakin swelled with pride that she was drawn to his lightsaber. That his lightsaber might be able to do some good in the hands of Rey.

He had no intention of calling out to her; Anakin never knew Rey in life, and she likely would’ve only been frightened by his presence. He just wanted to stand with her for a moment and burn his candle for her. To thank her for doing what he couldn’t. For his family.

But when he reached out to Rey on the island, he was greeted by the glass wall.

The cave of Ahch-To surrounded him once again, and instead of being lost in a maze, he was looking through the now translucent glass at Rey. He tapped the glass, hoping to get her attention, but she was lost in a trance. She snapped her fingers and looked back and forth, like looking down a long tunnel.

She moved toward the glass wall, and for a moment, Anakin was sure she could see him. He nearly spoke out for her, when she whispered.

_Let me see them._

_My parents._

Rey looked through the glass and only a mirror stared back at her. Anakin was lost again behind the tinted wall as he called out for Rey, knowing she couldn’t hear him.

  
  


Lost in the trance of his Force powers, sitting under the sun of Mortis, Anakin called out to the afterlife in the Force.

He enlisted all Jedi to call out at the same time, to use their collective power of Force spirits to find those who had become one with the Force, but hadn’t ascended to a spirit. Darth Sidious spent decades trying to master the art of immortality, but he was missing the one key to activating the midichlorians to bring a person back:

The light.

So Anakin sat at the nexus of the Force; the spire atop his monastery, floating above the crystal that lit the world of Mortis. Obi-Wan and Yoda sat on Mortis with him at opposite ends, and Aayla Secura, Luminara Unduli, Adi Gallia, Mace Windu, and Kanan Jarrus all sat in their own respective places in the galaxy at the very same moment, connecting with the light.

They all reached out with the Force and thought the same word:

_Daughter._

Mortis ruptured beneath him.

The power holding him up nearly cracked and the faintest voice came into consciousness.

_Father?_

Anakin reached for the voice and the glass wall slammed so viscerally shut that Anakin lost his concentration and fell from the monastery.

When he woke up, he found Obi-Wan standing over him, looking hardly concerned over Anakin’s fall from atop the spire.

“I assume you felt the glass wall too?” Anakin nodded in response. Obi-Wan’s voice was playful but his eyes showed concern. “If The Son can block our collective force power, I’m worried about our ability to beat him.”

“We’re missing a key ingredient,” Anakin admitted. “The dyad. They have to be bridged. The power of Rey and Ben together combined with our collective Force power is enough to finally beat him.”

“Maybe you should see this,” Obi-Wan helped him to his feet, and Anakin moved through the Force, leaving Obi-Wan on Mortis.

They stood in a room that glowed with a red light, clean lines and blank walls, as sterile as the interior of an Imperial Star Destroyer. Nothing in these environments ever had any type of decoration, nothing to make a space personal. When one officer died, he or she could be easily replaced with the next on the chain with very little labor. 

At the head of the room sat a throne placed upon a similarly red dais and the desiccated face of Snoke snarled out at them. Snoke was nothing more than an organic puppet for the Son, who was too distracted with the mess in front of him to bother with the glass wall.

He held the scavenger Rey in the air, while Ben knelt in front of him. Anakin reached through the Force to feel Ben’s intent, and not wanting to distract him, Anakin simply held out a flicker of light. 

While Rey was tortured in front of him, Ben Solo pulled from all his deeply buried emotions and they led him toward the light that his grandfather held out for him.

And when given the opportunity, Ben used the power of manipulation taught to him by the dark side and struck the Son by killing the body he inhabited.

Anakin could only watch as Ben Solo and Rey of Jakku danced in sync, taking out the guards of Supreme Leader Snoke one by one, the tether that held them together only growing stronger with each swing of a saber and every shared look in between near misses with death.

Unable to intervene in their fight, Anakin breathed a sigh of relief when Ben defeated the last guard and its body fell to the floor in a disgusting thunk. 

When Rey and Ben looked at each other, both felt the pull of their Force Bond, activating the link in their minds, and that’s when Anakin reached for the glass wall again.

He waited for the exact moments their two minds melded into one, and when he felt that click into place, he reached out with one finger to tap against the glass wall.

It shattered on impact.

The Son materialized in front of him with a scowl already lining his face.

“When will you learn, _Chosen One_? _”_ He used the title as a taunt. “You cannot stop me. You thought you killed me years ago, but all I did was wait. I waited until I found the perfect opportunity: a grandson as weak as you are.”

Anakin let out a wordless growl of anger and reached out his hand, pulling the Force through all of time and space until a lightsaber reached his hand.

A green blade swished into life, and Anakin moved toward the Son.

The Son easily blocked his attacks, not making any offensive move himself. He carried no weapon and simply looked at Anakin swinging his saber like he was no more than an irritating insect that would eventually buzz off into the world.

Growing frustrated with being the only aggressor in a fight, Anakin dropped the hilt on the unfamiliar lightsaber and reached through the Force for the Son.

Rather than seizing his throat as Vader would have done, Anakin only attached himself to his life force. He grabbed onto the very soul of the Son, and forced him to his knees as he let out cries of mercy, not wishing to be tamed.

As quickly as he tamed the Son, there was a crack in the Force so visceral that Anakin nearly lost his footing and the glass wall went slamming down again, the signature of the Son gone.

He stood again in Snoke’s throne room, this time completely demolished as the floor of the Star Destroyer ruptured beneath him. He reached through the Force and felt the breath of both Rey and Ben. 

His grandson stirred and Anakin knelt by his side, laying a single hand on his chest.

_Come back, Ben. You are not lost._

He let the candle flare as brightly as his power would allow, and the light shined on Ben Solo’s face, lighting him up like an angel of the Force.

A light ringing called out to him, and Anakin turned to find the hilt of his lightsaber split in two and his crystal calling out to him once again.

“For Rey,” he whispered to the blue singing crystal. “And for Ben.”

  
  


After Rey and Ben accepted their different paths and left each other in Snoke’s throne room, Anakin returned to his monastery, feeling in a state of abject failure. He gave into his anger and tried to attack the Son, who merely laughed at his attempts. He didn’t even think to use his Force powers until it was too late and their connection severed.

After years of sitting on the Father’s seat in Mortis, he still hadn’t overcome the darkness of Vader. He felt much a fool and an imposter, a poser that somehow convinced the Jedi to forgive and follow him after his many failings - as both a person and a person who uses the Force.

“Oh, Anakin,” the voice of Obi-Wan said directly in his ear, as the man himself appeared in the monastery. “Still wallowing in self-pity, I see.”

“I failed. I used anger against the Son, and if I had only allowed myself to be at peace for five seconds more, I could’ve tamed him. I failed to contact the Daughter. I failed to bring my son back to the Force, and I failed to bring my grandson back to the light. My legacy in the galaxy is Darth Vader, and that was what destroyed Ben Solo.”

Obi-Wan actually sat on the ground beside Anakin, and said nothing for what felt like a lifetime.

“The reason we couldn’t reach the Daughter wasn’t your failure. Yoda had a much more important mission at the time - one involving your son. And you cannot blame yourself for Ben Solo’s fall, just like you cannot blame yourself for Luke’s involvement in that fall. They all need to learn to grapple with their darkness, and you are a testament that proves its a lifelong journey. You burning the candle at both ends can’t bring Ben back, just like Rey of Jakku can’t bring Ben back. He needs to make the decision himself, otherwise what was it all for?”

_ No one’s ever really gone. _

The soft whisper floated through the Force and held tight onto Anakin’s chest. 

“That’s my son.” Tears fell freely from his eyes.

“Talking to your daughter.”

Anakin reached through the Force and felt his son on Ahch-To, finally returned to the Force as his power spread throughout the galaxy. He felt Luke on Ahch-To, with Leia, with Rey, with Ben Solo, and even sitting beside him in the sanctuary of Mortis. 

Luke returned to the Force with such ferocity that it shook the entire galaxy in his light.

“Do you feel him?” Anakin whispered to his oldest friend.

“He has achieved a power greater than any Jedi who ever lived. Or any Sith.”

“But he can’t contain it?”

“No.”

Rather than raging through the Force, looking for an answer, for any way to cheat death like he might have in the past, Anakin accepted his son’s fate, and waited for him to come home. 

When Luke passed out from the exhaustion of his feat, Anakin whispered through the Force.

_ Let go, Luke. _

And Luke Sykwalker faded into the Force, finally reaching out to the light of his father.

  
  



	6. Between TLJ and TROS.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Anakin and Luke visit a friend.  
> The Son sends a message to the galaxy.

Luke arrived at the monastery with a look of bewilderment on his face.

“Am I dead?” He asked, sounding more puzzled than anything else. “Because I don’t feel dead. I feel exactly how I felt before.”

“You are one with the Force.” Although he learned his lesson about stopping people from dying, Anakin would never have the heart to say out loud that his son was dead. “You are on Mortis now, with everyone else who became one with the Force.”

Luke flicked his eyes to the side to look at Obi-Wan. He had the aging of a man in his 50’s, but his smile lit up like a child. “It’s good to see you, Ben.”

Obi-Wan smiled in return. “Luke.”

“So, this is it? Dead people just stand around in this building until it’s time to visit someone struggling with the Force?”

Anakin burst out laughing at Luke’s simple way of looking at the world. Much like his own. He beamed with pride at his son that ascended through the Force.

“You can go anywhere in the galaxy you choose,” Obi-Wan explained gently. “You can’t get involved and most people can’t see you. Anakin and I choose to call Mortis our home, and the spirits of other Jedi come here for guidance. We hope you’ll do the same.”

Hoping to not look too eager for Luke to stay in Mortis, Anakin simply looked to the floor.

“They come to who for guidance?”

Despite being dead, Anakin blushed. His son smiled up at him, lighting up the entire plane of Mortis.

“Wait a second,” Luke looked around the monastery and then back and Anakin and Obi-Wan. “How come Ben and I still have our aged bodies, but you’re in your prime?”

“This is how I looked... the last time I saw my own face.” Anakin didn’t realize how grim the statement sounded until he said it aloud and Obi-Wan and Luke reacted to it. He was in the Vader machine for twenty years, and he only removed the helmet to sleep, which he did in a bacta tank. He had no clue how he would have looked as an older man.

“But you can appear however you want,” Anakin wanted to move past the Darth Vader reference. “You can appear as your younger self if you wish. People who knew you will see you as they knew you. That’s why I’m seeing Obi-Wan as General Kenobi of the Clone Wars, and you’re seeing Old Ben Kenobi, hermit living in the dunes of Tatooine.”

“Ah, my many faces.”

“You can see Master Yoda as well. And most Jedi now live on through their spirits and their voices, but you are only the fourth to appear physically.”

Luke moved around the monastery, taking in the open space with the careful time of a man with all of eternity ahead of him.

“So I can visit Ben?”

Obi-Wan glanced sadly at Anakin.

“Ben is blocked,” he said gently. “We’ve been trying to break through the block for years.”

“Snoke?”

“A deity called The Son. He used to live on Mortis before I destroyed him during the Clone Wars, when I thought I was bringing balance to Mortis. He survived and has taken on many shapes so he can impact the galaxy. Snoke was only one of them. Now that Ben’s killed his former master, he could take on the shape of anybody.”

“So the fight doesn’t end, even in death.”

Anakin moved toward his son and laid a hand on his shoulder, guiding him out of the monastery to show him the world of Mortis.

  
  


“You know, I think I’m gonna stay this age,” Luke stated decisively to Obi-Wan Kenobi as they stood on the mountains of Mortis and looked out onto the landscape. “I could go back to my younger days, but what’s the point? The only people who would see me as Young Luke are you and dad. When I visit Rey and Ben they’ll see me as I was when I died.”

“Are you planning to visit Rey?” Obi-Wan asked with an air of skepticism, not wanting to outright discourage Luke, but at the same time knowing the cost of too much interference with the physical galaxy. 

“I’d like to. I wanna see Leia too, and maybe Wedge or Lando has joined the Resistance and I could see them too - ”

“Luke,” Obi-Wan gently interrupted the tirade of reunions. “Although we have lived on through the Force, we are no longer part of the mortal world. You cannot just sit on the Resistance Base and catch up with old friends as if you are still alive. They need to make their own path in the galaxy. I never went and stood around on the Rebel base with you, even though I would’ve liked to. I would’ve liked to have seen Leia and Ahsoka as well. I only went to you in times of dire need. This lesson, like most lessons, was hard for your father to learn.”

Looking rather chastened, Luke remained silent and stared out into the distance of Mortis. He fiddled with the hem of his tunic and avoided Obi-Wan’s eye.

“There’s one visit I’d like to make. And I wanna bring dad with me.”

Obi-Wan thought of the wide grin on Luke’s face when he first saw his father in the monastery. When he realized that they’d have eternity to spend together. It was the same unbridled joy of the young boy he watched grow up on Tatooine, blissfully unaware of his great destiny.

“Anakin might need cheering up,” Obi-Wan said lightly. “He spends every moment of his time being a light for Ben Solo and checking up on Rey’s progress. When he’s not doing that, he’s agonizing over our coming battle with the Son.”

Luke only smiled at his former Master and faded away, likely to find his father. Obi-Wan could only smile at the thought of Skywalkers that found each other on Mortis.

  
  


“Dad,” Anakin’s heart swelled when he heard Luke’s voice and felt his approach. He had never been called “dad” before. A few Jedi referred to him as “Father”. But dad? That was a word that he’d never tire of hearing from Luke. “There’s somewhere I want to bring you. I made a promise to an old friend.”

“An old friend?” Anakin asked. “An... alive friend?”

“I sure hope so.”

Luke took his father’s hand and closed his eyes, as they walked through the sky together.

When Anakin opened his eyes, he was on an unfamiliar ship, orbiting a world that he was unfamiliar with. Even using the Force, he was unable to parse out exactly where they stood in the galaxy.

“Where are we?” But before the last word left his lips, Luke walked out of the room with the confidence of a man that had been there before. There was a clatter and bustling in the room outside of his, and before Anakin could move, Luke came back in the room with his old friend.

He saw her lekku first. The blue and white stripes shone against the light he emitted as a spirit and Ahsoka’s features lit up the dark vacuum of space when she looked at him. The years had aged her skin, but her eyes were the same Snips.

“Master?” She whispered in almost disbelief as tears flooded her eyes. 

Before Anakin could say anything, Ahsoka took him in her embrace and he could keep her warmth even as a spirit and he allowed her light to shine onto him. His heart lifted and Anakin held Ahsoka back and let his tears flow freely.

“I’m so sorry,” he choked out every word, knowing that it wasn’t enough, that it would never  _ be  _ enough. He didn’t know how Ahsoka was alive and standing in his embrace, and he didn’t care. Knowing words would never do justice to how much he regretted their fight on Malachor, he simply sent his light in with hers and let the Force do all the talking he didn’t know how to do.

Ahsoka let him go, but kept her hands raised on his shoulders while she spoke to him. Almost like she was the master now, and he the student.

“I don’t need apologies from you, Master. I already know. I’ve always known, and I’ve always forgiven you. I forgave you before it even happened, and I forgave you for everything you could’ve done before or after. You are my Master. There is nothing you could do to make me forget that.”

Anakin wiped the tears from his eyes. “You don’t need to call me Master anymore. You haven’t since you stopped being my Padawan.”

“You and Master Kenobi will always be Master. Well, and Sky Guy.”

Ahsoka’s voice took on her usual sarcastic touch when she called him Sky Guy. 

“I remember when I hated that name.”

“So do I.”

“But for years, every time I imagined seeing you again, you were calling me Sky Guy.”

She smiled. “You were always Sky Guy to me. I even tried it on Luke, but it was never quite the same.”

He looked from his student and back to his son and his heart swelled so enormously with pride, that it could’ve burst. Anakin could have ceased existing in that very moment, and it all would have been okay. Luke and Ahsoka found each other.

And they loved him.

“There were very few moments as Darth Vader when I even remembered who I was,” Anakin admitted slowly, choosing every word carefully before he broke down in tears again. He took each of their hands in his. “Ahsoka, you told me on Malachor that you wouldn’t leave me, and that made me feel so much like Anakin Skywalker that it sent Darth Vader into a rage. And right before I died, Luke said the same thing. That he wouldn’t leave me. I never would have come back if it wasn’t for the love of Anakin Skywalker. And I have both of you to thank for that.”

So Anakin sat with Luke and Ahsoka, and for that one night, he didn’t worry about the Son.

  
  


“Young Skywalker,” Yoda appeared in the monastery, a place where he normally never ventured, and stared at Luke and Anakin expectantly. Anakin had no clue to whom he was speaking, and he didn’t particularly care to know. “Heard the message, have you?”

“What message?” Luke asked, while Anakin returned to his business from before Yoda arrived.

“An old foe, returned. A message to the galaxy, he did send.”

Anakin’s characteristic impatience was rising in his chest despite his years of trials before becoming the Father of Mortis. Why was Yoda so self-important, even in death? He couldn’t just tell them exactly why he deigned to grace them with his presence? 

“We haven’t checked in.” Anakin answered shortly without finishing his sentence.  _ Since visiting Ahsoka.  _ Who Anakin visited and why was none of Yoda’s business.

“Darth Sidious.” The wizened old voice croaked out, sounding almost pleased with himself for being the one to break the information. “Checking on the girl Rey was I, when I heard the message come through. Establishing his Empire again, he plans to.”

“Darth Sidious?” Anakin nearly snarled out, his voice dripping with exasperation. “Darth Sidious is long dead. His followers on Exegol attempted to revive him and failed.”

“His voice, it was. His signature through the Force.”

“Well what are we waiting for?” The high pitched determination of Luke’s youth shined through as he stomped to Yoda’s side. “Let’s go get him before he can blow up more planets!”

“Young Skywalker, we cannot - ”

“It’s not Darth Sidious.” Anakin interrupted. “It’s The Son. Finally making his move for the galaxy.

“It’s finally time to end this.”

  
  



	7. TROS

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This is where I fix TROS.

_ Be with me. _

Rey had been calling through the Force for nearly a standard year. Every time he meditated Anakin heard the calls from the girl, begging for the guidance of Jedi past. Luke and Yoda said that she took the original Jedi texts from their spot at the Temple, before Yoda torched it with lightning. Evidently she had been reading them and learning.

Anakin himself never read Jedi texts. He wasn’t entirely sure Yoda did either. No Jedi he knew during his time in the Order ever sat down to read any ancient books. Especially not physical books, with pages that could be touched. All of their learning was done via holocron.

The thought of physical books reminded Anakin of his young grandson, sitting in a hut alone and practicing his penmanship. A tugging pulled at his chest as Anakin remembered who this was all for.

He couldn’t answer Rey. Not yet.

Not until she was ready to defeat the Son.

The scavenger was stagnant in her training. She ran sessions with the training droid day after day, never learning anything new and only concentrating on her strengths, like her athleticism and fighting skills. She read the texts but rarely pondered over them. Her meditations were always cut off when she felt her bond with Ben Solo opening up. Anakin wasn’t sure she yet understood true balance in the Force.

And he couldn’t tell her - she had to learn, which was the path of every Jedi.

She didn’t need the training of the Jedi in that moment. She was only looking for the belonging that she spent her life in search of. What she didn’t realize was that she was cutting off the tether of her own belonging every time she closed the bond on Ben Solo.

So Anakin sent out a candle of light to both of them, and prayed to the Force that it would help them find each other. He would need them together, if they were to defeat the Son.

Even after years of being a spirit on Mortis, patience was not a virtue Anakin possessed. 

He’d spent Force knew how long walking the cliffs and walkways of Mortis, levitating everything from flowers to rocks to his own shoes in front of him, to keep his mind off the impending showdown with the Son. Off his worry that Rey and Ben would never accept each other at the same time and allow their dyad it’s full power.

All he could do was hope.

Hope was a platitude that meant little to him during his time as Darth Vader, and even before that as a General in the Clone Wars. He simply didn’t have the fortitude to  _ let go _ of a situation and let the Force, or destiny, or fate run its course. The one lesson that Obi-Wan hammered into him from his time as a Padawan. Let go. 

So he walked the edge of the cliff surrounding his monastery, holding a flower and all it’s petals ahead of him, concentrating on the stem and the veins within the leaf, on the soft touch of the petals on his skin, when he felt a click within the Force, one so visceral that it took him out of his location and he ended up back in his monastery with Obi-Wan and Luke.

“What was that?”

Luke took his arm and led him through space.

They stood on the ruins of a ship, with floors that Anakin could identify but not place with the water crashing down around him, and his own self turning to the ethereal blue glow of a Force spirit. 

He looked to his son, who only nodded ahead of them.

Ben Solo stood at the top of the wreckage that he now knew was the second Death Star, and looked out at the ocean below him.

Anakin gently reached through the Force, and finally he could feel the signature of his grandson. Instead of raging turmoil, he found calm acceptance. Not the wicked serenity free of all emotions that was preached by his own Jedi Order. But the beating heart of a man who accepted his mistakes and wanted to change. The tears of regret, and the longing of his heart for his father.

When Ben turned, Anakin was sure that he was spotted. He moved to finally speak to his grandson, to apologize for his legacy, when Luke held his arm gently.

“He doesn’t see us yet.”

“Then who is he talking to?”

“It’s just a memory. One that we have to let him live out.”

So Anakin watched while Ben stood on the wreckage and cried. He let his light flicker more brightly than ever, and for the first time, Ben felt it. His very soul reached out and touched the light for the first time and for a moment, Anakin  _ was _ Ben Solo, and Ben Solo  _ was _ Anakin Skywalker. He unhooked his lightsaber from the belt and threw it into the raging waters, for the first time confident in his resolve. No longer being torn apart.

He knew what he had to do, and he knew he had the strength to do it.

Ben Solo ran into the wreckage of the Death Star and left the planet, and Kylo Ren, in his wake.

“I have somewhere I need to be,” Luke told his father. He began to fade away in the Force, before he said. “But there’s someone waiting for you. In the place between life and death.”

Anakin remembered his own death of physical body, mere steps away from where he stood. The serene white  _ nothing _ where he finally found peace within himself. Where Obi-Wan called out to him.

Again, Anakin let go. He closed his eyes and let go of the galaxy and everything surrounding him and that’s when he saw her. 

Leia Organa stood suspended in the air, the white nothingness bringing her features so clearly into sight that it nearly took Anakin’s breath away. He rarely had the chance to truly look at his daughter; in life he only saw her through the black orbs of a cybernetic suit. He never looked on her with his own eyes.

Her wide brown eyes stared back at him and they held each other within the Force, Leia knowing exactly who he was. And accepting him.

“Father,” she whispered with the shadow of a smile lining her lips. “Anakin Skywalker.”

“Leia,” he choked out, trying to fight back tears, searching for words to say how truly sorry he was, and it all fell short.

“I know.”

They reached for each other, but Leia was no longer corporeal. She was just an image that hung in limbo.

“Let go, Leia.” Anakin gently urged her. 

“No,” she shook her head, already resolved of her decision. “I have to wait for my son.”

“Your son will find you. It’s not his time.”

Leia paused for a moment before closing her eyes, and with the practiced ease of the strongest woman he’d ever known, she let go.

  
  


Anakin materialized in his monastery with his daughter at his side. She looked around the vaulted room in wonder, thirty years taken off her face at the sight of the lit up runes and the window that led to the outside, where the Mortis sun shone down on them.

“What is this place?”

“This is a plane called Mortis. I’ve been here with my old masters, Yoda and Obi-Wan Kenobi. Luke joined us after he passed from the physical galaxy. The spirits of Jedi past are throughout the galaxy, but they call Mortis home.”

“And you’re... their leader?” She sounded skeptical. Anakin didn’t know if it was because dead people shouldn’t have leaders or because she felt Anakin was unworthy of being the title.

“I wouldn’t say that. I took the place of a man called the Father, and with it his responsibility of keeping Mortis and the galaxy in a state of balance.” A lone pebble lay at his feet, and Anakin levitated it, giving his hands some movement while he had this conversation. “No one has to do anything I tell them. I provide guidance when it’s asked. I make plans of action when I see the darkness rising.”

“Darkness rose around my son,” Leia’s voice rose sharply and her Force signature flared with anger. “Where were you when Snoke manipulated my son and brought him to the dark side? When the Emperor did the same thing? Were you sitting on your utopia with your old war buddies?”

Her anger was justified and it tore a hole into Anakin’s heart. “Snoke, Palpatine. All manifestations of the same being called the Son, who has been waging a war on the light since before I was born. He set his sights on Ben while he was still growing inside you. By the time I found out, it was too late. He blocked Ben from me.”

It all sounded so pathetic, even to his own ears. He claimed to be some kind of deity on Mortis, but he couldn't even stop his own grandson from being abused and groomed.

“Ben turned back to the light,” Leia finally answered, all anger seeped out of her voice. “I felt it, while I was hanging there. I thought he would die soon after. Like..” She didn’t need to finish the sentence. Like Anakin did. “And do we have a plan to defeat this Son?”

“We do. It required Rey and Ben and their special bond in the Force. Now that they’re together...”

“We have enough strength.” Leia smiled again. “And I’ll do whatever I need. I just... There’s some people I thought I’d see in the afterlife.”

She looked longingly out the window, and Anakin moved them to the outside, where she could feel the air of Mortis pulling her into a hug.

“Han Solo?” Anakin asked lightly. “I liked him.”

Leia let out a dark laugh, but looked at Anakin with a smile.

“Yeah, him. Him and...” She paused. ‘Him and my dad. Bail Organa, and my mother, Breha.”

During his lifetime, Anakin would’ve felt a twisting in his chest at his daughter calling another man “dad”. He only felt elation that she was raised by the Senator Organa that Anakin once knew.

“I never met Breha, but I worked with Bail during the Clone Wars. He was a good man. When this is all over, I can show you how to contact them.”

Before Leia could respond, the spirits of past Jedi filled the yard and Obi-Wan materialized beside them. He looked from Leia to Anakin, and back before smiling his genial  _ Obi-Wan _ smile and said, “Princess. I got your message.”

She only smiled back at him and clasped his hand in hers. “Obi-Wan Kenobi.”

Luke and Yoda arrived and Luke took his sister in his arms before giving his status report.

“Rey is on her way to Exegol. She is engaging the Son.”

“Ben was headed there as well.”

“Take our places, we should?” Yoda looked up at Anakin, and he nodded in response.

He floated up to the top of the monastery tower and to his place above the crystal that lit Mortis. At the very nexus of the Force, he could feel every midichlorian in the galaxy and every midichlorian inside  _ him _ , buzzing with the power of the Force. Feeling all his Jedi take their places at their nexus, Anakin went to Exegol.

Right at the Son’s doorstep was the looming glass wall. Ben and Rey connected their dyad, and all his Jedi sat at their places. Anakin’s arms throbbed with his power from the Force as he lifted his hand and tapped the wall with a single finger.

The glass shattered.

“Where are you?!” Anakin ran past the wall and shouted into the cave that surrounded him, but was met by no physical body, only the dark swirling presence of the Son’s rage. “I’m going to find you!”

With the glass wall shattered, Anakin was easily able to switch from the spiritual level of the Force and see into the physical galaxy. When he looked into the Son’s throne room, he found the face of Palpatine, sneering at him through the Force as he took the life and dyad from Rey and Ben.

Anakin’s rage shouted through the Force as Ben and Rey both fell to the ground. He moved for the Son, when Ben stood up first, making his way toward who he thought was Emperor Palpatine.

With barely a thought the Son sent Ben flying over the cliff.

So Anakin was faced with a choice. He could face the Son now and eliminate him from the galaxy once and for all. Or he could go to his grandson, falling to the bottom of a black pit.

He looked down at Rey, her signature still alive and vibrant in the Force. He let go of the Son and trusted Rey to do her part, before careening himself to the bottom of the pit.

For a man plummeting to his untimely demise, a warm calm spread over Ben Solo. Almost like he promised himself he would never be lost in the darkness again and refused to give into it, even during certain death. Anakin went to catch Ben’s fall through the Force, when he saw Ben’s hand move and his Force power flare up as he caught himself before hitting the ground.

Ben crawled to his feet and Anakin made himself visible in the physical world. His light glowed blue and he finally looked into the eyes of his grandson.

“Anakin Skywalker,” Ben’s deep and normally confident baritone came out soft and strangled. “My grandfather.” It was almost a question.

Anakin simply nodded his head in answer, his flicker of light burning brighter than ever before while the light from Ben mixed with his. 

“Palpatine has been pretending to be you.”

“I know.”

Ben looked away from Anakin and stared straight up out of the pit and they watched the blue and white lightning hit the sky above them.

“Is Rey okay? I can still feel her in the Force, but she’s barely holding on.”

_ Be with me. _

The message rang louder through the Force than it ever had before and the voices of all the Jedi came back in response. 

“She will bring balance to the Force. As I did.”

Ben nodded and his jaw tightened as he fought back tears. “Why didn’t you come to me? I called you.” His voice cracked on the last word.

Anakin took him in his arms and his body shook with sobs in time with Ben’s as they held each other in the darkness.

“The dark side is a trap.” He choked out every word as he told Ben everything he wanted to tell him from the beginning. “It pulls you in when you’re at your most desperate, and makes you believe it’s your only friend and it will give you everything you want. It sets you up to lose everything, and then all you have is the dark. But the dark side is weak.”

Ben looked into Anakin’s eyes, a question lingering there. How to keep his darkness at bay for the rest of his life.

“All it takes to defeat the dark is a single flicker of light. You are a light. Rey is a light. And the dark is absolutely nothing.”

Grandfather and grandson sat in each other’s light for a moment that could have been part of a second, or it could have been an eternity. Anakin always kept a part of himself with Ben, lighting up the bottom of a pit.

When he heard the disgusting scream of the Son ring through the Force, and he knew Rey played her part. Now it was the Jedi’s turn.

“Go, Ben. And finish what I started.”

**  
  
**

The body of Palpatine melted and obliterated into nothing, while Anakin waited on the other side of the Force for the Son to appear again. When the Son materialized in front of him, Anakin wasted no more time.

He lifted his hand through the Force and brought the Son to his knees. With no physical body to hang on to, Anakin could feel the midichlorians swimming through the Son’s spirit and he knew that with only a thought, he could snuff them out.

Instead he kept the Son hanging in the balance, while he and all the Jedi sent out one message at the same moment:

_ Daughter. _

A vision of white and green appeared in front of them, and the Son cried out, “Sister. Sister, do you still live?”

“She stayed dead,” Anakin said. “She stayed dead and allowed herself to scatter through the winds of the Force, unable to live on without the life Force that she gave to another. She is only an apparition, but if you go now, you can be with her.”

“And if I don’t?”

“Then I will make it so you no longer exist.”

The Son took no time to consider. He had no second thoughts or moments of doubt. He only looked at his sister and scattered with her through the Force, and they blew away together.

****  
  


When he came back to the physical world, Anakin found Rey and Ben holding each other the floor of Exegol. Ben’s heart beat so loudly in his chest that it actually held a rhythm to all of the galaxy. He raised his hand to stroke Rey’s hair and smiled. 

He lifted his chin before taking a deep breath and taking in all of Rey with his eyes, memorizing her nose, her lips, and her hair to his memory before closing his eyes and falling to the ground, at peace with his decision.

“Ben?” Rey whispered and when realization dawned, she let out a cry that nearly shook the Force with his ferocity.

Anakin appeared before her and she cried out, “What happened?! Bring him back!”

Her entire being shook with desperation, and all the Jedi appeared behind her to take her in their arms. 

They held Rey while she thrashed and screamed, and Anakin silenced the room with only a glance.

“It’s okay, Rey. I know what I have to do.”

She only stared back at him, a look of bewilderment on her face. Obi-Wan nodded behind him with tears flowing silently. Luke openly sobbed while he held Leia and Rey in his arms. 

Anakin knelt beside his grandson and laid a hand upon his chest. His life Force poured from him and into Ben Solo and in Anakin’s last moments, he finally called out for the one person he’d been yearning for since his turn to the light. The one name he hadn’t dared let pass through his lips.

_ Padme. _

The sky opened up before them and descending from the heavens came the face of Padme Naberrie Amidala, smiling first at her children and grandchildren, before landing on Anakin.

“Ani,” she whispered, her soft voice filling his depleted body with renewed strength. “I knew you would find me.”

“I will always find you.”

Ben Solo sat up in a daze and looked at his grandfather, who was slowly passing out of existence. Rey ran to Ben and held him upright, both of them staring at Anakin in awe.

“Now be brave,” he said, holding his grandson’s eyes in his own for one last time. “And don’t look back.”

Anakin Skywalker and Padme Amidala spread to the wind. Their ashes spread together and intertwined, and they were the air, and they were the stars, they were the souls of all people, and they became the Force.


	8. Post TROS

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This is the part where Reylo gets their HEA.

Ben lifted himself out of the boat before she did, and offered his hand to help her out. Rey took it with a surety that even surprised her, as she allowed Ben to help her step from the boat.

They walked up the patio and took in the sights of the Naboo lake house, previously owned by Padme Amidala. Left in her will to her children. The lake house sat empty for decades before Ben Solo took the gift left to him by his grandmother.

“It’s so green!” Rey exclaimed, her smile radiating throughout the patio as she looked to Ben, who was smiling back down at her. “More green than Takodana or Ajan Kloss. Look at this view!” 

She gestured to the open fields and waterfalls ahead, and without taking his eyes off of her, Ben said, “It’s perfect.”

“I can’t wait to explore!” She never had to hide her enthusiasm with Ben. She went into the house, eager to find quarters of her very own, quarters that only had to share with Ben. She found herself at a long table sitting in front of a fireplace, and a guard came out from the shadows.

“Hello, my lady. I hope I didn’t frighten you.” The man smiled earnestly at Rey, and she responded in turn. “My grandfather served Queen Amidala, and my cousin served after him. When I found out her descendants were finally coming to the lakehouse, I immediately took up my family post. I hope that is okay with you.”

“It’s more than okay.” Rey said, her smile so wide that it nearly broke her face.

“And what is your name, my lady?”

“Rey.”

“Rey Naberrie? Rey Skywalker?” The man looked at her questioningly.

Rey looked into the distance, first at Ben, and then further into the sunset as she felt the spirits of Anakin and Padme flowing by the waterfall, and if she didn’t know better, she’d say she heard the sounds of distant laughter.

The spirits who held her on Exegol appeared on the horizon. She could feel Ben reaching to them through the Force, and the wind whipped through his hair and a smile broke out on his face. 

“No,” her spirit lifted as the wind blew through her now. “Just Rey.”

She returned to Ben’s side on the patio and they looked onto the horizon, one of his arms resting around her shoulders, and the other cradling her belly. He crouched down and whispered to the life growing inside her.

“Just wait till we tell you the story of Anakin Skywalker.”

He stood, and they watched the sun set over the waterfalls, the Force finally in balance.


End file.
